Consider Revelation 3:14.
I've read over it time and time again because I love the words to the church at Laodicea, but the first phrase...that didn't grab me until today. "These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation." (NIV) Wow!
Amen in Greek of course means "So be it!" God told Moses, "I am who I am." He directed that Moses tell the Israelites "I am" sent him. Does that sound presumptive? Yes! Of course. Is it boastful? Nope. To tell the truth about who you are can sound boastful, even to yourself. But if it is the truth, it may actually be a duty to say it. A very painful and difficult duty for a diffident person, but a duty.
We're within weeks of the presidential nomination conventions here in the United States. The media is aghast at the revelations about one of the eliminated candidates, proclaiming, "Just think, he could have been our NOMINEE." The remaining candidates stand daily before the public, telling us they're the best possible choice for the office. Few people believe them. Naw, that's not necessarily true. I don't believe them. But that's not the issue. I got into this to talk about how hard it is to run for office, to put yourself out there and ask for votes. Gee, I hate even to ask for money for worthwhile causes! But to ask people to vote for me? I've tried it. It's excruciating. But if all people of good character shy away from talking about their virtues, we'll have only people of low character running the nation, the state, the county, and the city. God help us then!
"I am." God is who God is. I am who I am. If I am the most qualified person for a job, maybe it's my duty to subject myself to the scrutiny of people who think my truth is my boast.
Talk about a selection process, Moses didn't seek out the role of savior of Israel. He went kicking and screaming, telling God he couldn't speak effectively, that nobody would believe him...in the end he just flat begged God to send somebody else. He didn't want to go. But he was up to the job, and God knew it. God woud not have selected him had he not had the leadership abilities needed. If God's sending you to speak to a newcomer or to a meeting or to lead the country, he knows what he's doing. These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. You want to give the commission a little more credibility? God doesn't send us to do things we can't do. He is absolutely awesome, and with his direction and in his service, so are you!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
"No Longer Needing to be Right"
Consider Psalm 51:1-3, 12.
Several people I sponsor -- okay. When a finger is pointing out three are pointing at the pointer. Several of us in OA -- and we are legion -- have found some real recovery, but the food is messy, anywhere from too much of the right stuff to everything that doesn't grab me first. I went to bed the other night thinking about how to answer this issue, and the answer revealed to me the next morning was plain. Plain, but hard to corral into the blog.
I'll sort through the input:
My sponsor spoke the other day of a character defect of "that of feeling like a bother." Oh, yeah! That's us. With each other, and with God. But we're not the carpenter. We're not the potter. We're the building blocks, the material, and it's necessary day after day after day to renew our Third Step resolve to offer ourselves to God to build with us or do with us as he pleases. Do you understand what "do with" could mean? If we're not building materials, what are we? landfill? decoration? tools? Whatever. And whatever is okay, because we're not in charge. We don't have to be important. We don't have to prove to anybody that we're the star, that we are in charge, that we can carry this whole thing off. Nope. We're not in charge. We have to let go after we offer ourselves--or in order to offer ourselves, or both. But have you seen some of the artwork made with what other people consider trash? That's the kind of artist God is. He can make something magnificent out of us, if we just yield and let him.
He strips away the dregs, the bitter ugly crust, the bondage of self. He relieves us of that dead weight. With that gone, we're usable, we're precious material to be used in oh, so many ways. With it intact, we're not worth much at all.
He takes away our difficulties, too. What difficulties? Well, the food cravings. The "clean your plate because the children are starving in China" rules that we pass on to our kids. What a gift we could give them by teaching them to throw away the food they're not going to eat. Instead, we nibble the edible portions, proving to them what we learned as children that an empty plate is a sin. What a legacy for those we love! He takes away the stupid computer games. He takes away the "feeling like a bother." He strips our financial worries, our chaotic home life, our difficulties. All of them. Why? Because we feel so much better without them, of course! It's all for us!
Nope. That "all for us" is one of the difficulties. He takes away our difficulties so victory over them can bear witness to those we would help, not of our goodness and usefulness. Nope. Of his power, his love and his way of life! Oh, that we may do that every day of our lives, to live in his shadow and be his putty. May we do his will ALWAYS!
AA Speaker John A tells of a man who told him, "I hope you take the Third Step." He protested, said he'd taken it with his sponsor. The man told him it wasn't true. He knew that because John A was homeless and jobless, cold and miserable. If John had really done the Third Step, God would be taking better care of him. Settling down later to sleep in his car, he gave up and told God he had. Within a day he had a job and a place to live.
God's not bothered when we trouble him. Instead, he's relieved. It is his good will to give us the kingdom. Just ask.
Several people I sponsor -- okay. When a finger is pointing out three are pointing at the pointer. Several of us in OA -- and we are legion -- have found some real recovery, but the food is messy, anywhere from too much of the right stuff to everything that doesn't grab me first. I went to bed the other night thinking about how to answer this issue, and the answer revealed to me the next morning was plain. Plain, but hard to corral into the blog.
I'll sort through the input:
- For Today (August 10, page 223) starts by quoting Juan Ramón Jiménez saying, "A permanent state of transition is man's most noble condition." Then it begins with, "Change is not compatible with stubborn pride" and ends with "giving up is not giving in, nor is it failing. It is no longer needing to be right."
- As Bill Sees It, page 159, quotes Bill W. in a 1959 letter: "We know that if we rebel against doing that which is reasonably possible for us, then we will be penalized. "
- The Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous says:
The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most people try to live by self-propulsion. (page 63)
My sponsor spoke the other day of a character defect of "that of feeling like a bother." Oh, yeah! That's us. With each other, and with God. But we're not the carpenter. We're not the potter. We're the building blocks, the material, and it's necessary day after day after day to renew our Third Step resolve to offer ourselves to God to build with us or do with us as he pleases. Do you understand what "do with" could mean? If we're not building materials, what are we? landfill? decoration? tools? Whatever. And whatever is okay, because we're not in charge. We don't have to be important. We don't have to prove to anybody that we're the star, that we are in charge, that we can carry this whole thing off. Nope. We're not in charge. We have to let go after we offer ourselves--or in order to offer ourselves, or both. But have you seen some of the artwork made with what other people consider trash? That's the kind of artist God is. He can make something magnificent out of us, if we just yield and let him.
He strips away the dregs, the bitter ugly crust, the bondage of self. He relieves us of that dead weight. With that gone, we're usable, we're precious material to be used in oh, so many ways. With it intact, we're not worth much at all.
He takes away our difficulties, too. What difficulties? Well, the food cravings. The "clean your plate because the children are starving in China" rules that we pass on to our kids. What a gift we could give them by teaching them to throw away the food they're not going to eat. Instead, we nibble the edible portions, proving to them what we learned as children that an empty plate is a sin. What a legacy for those we love! He takes away the stupid computer games. He takes away the "feeling like a bother." He strips our financial worries, our chaotic home life, our difficulties. All of them. Why? Because we feel so much better without them, of course! It's all for us!
Nope. That "all for us" is one of the difficulties. He takes away our difficulties so victory over them can bear witness to those we would help, not of our goodness and usefulness. Nope. Of his power, his love and his way of life! Oh, that we may do that every day of our lives, to live in his shadow and be his putty. May we do his will ALWAYS!
AA Speaker John A tells of a man who told him, "I hope you take the Third Step." He protested, said he'd taken it with his sponsor. The man told him it wasn't true. He knew that because John A was homeless and jobless, cold and miserable. If John had really done the Third Step, God would be taking better care of him. Settling down later to sleep in his car, he gave up and told God he had. Within a day he had a job and a place to live.
God's not bothered when we trouble him. Instead, he's relieved. It is his good will to give us the kingdom. Just ask.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Cheek Turning and Forgiving
Consider Matthew 5:38-39.
Two comments today blended in my mind. A friend of mine was talking about her daughters-in-law who vilify and mistreat her. I don't know them and can't judge them (couldn't even if I knew them) but I know the woman they are talking about and know her to be a kind and gentle woman. She was saying her priest once said to her in connection with the directive from the Sermon on the Mount to turn the other cheek, "It's not necessary, though, to keep going back to get the cheek slapped day after day after day." The other comment was from a taped reading of Emmet Fox's analysis of the Lord's Prayer. It was that the person we hate most in the world is a person we are inexorably bound to with the tightest bond we have to any other person. Only when we forgive that person can we set ourselves free from the chains. Forgive? How can you forgive the person you hate most in the world?
Forgive can mean to excuse for a fault or an offense, to pardon. That feels like it's just letting the person get by with something, that the person will not--cannot--reform because the actions don't lead to the natural consequences. That's the sense of "forgive and forget." It's going back to get the face slapped time and time again. It doesn't make good sense for frightfully wrongful behavior. It benefits nobody. Forgive can also mean to absolve from payment. Again, it can be a disservice to the person being forgiven.
The other meaning of forgive, though, feels right in the context of the Twelve Steps. That is to renounce anger or resentment against. That's what Fox proposes as the means of forgiving those who trespass against us. In a state of prayer and contemplation, we consider the person and release them, let them go. We bless them, cutting the chain so we can move forward in God's will. A person suggested once that I mentally place the offending person in a bubble, state that they are released, bless them, and visualize them either drifting away or speeding away, out of my space.
My friend told me how freeing, how peaceful it is not to be tied to the bickering of the daughters-in-law. She and her husband are there when their sons need them, but the spitefulness on the other side of the relationship doesn't hold them hostage to the pettiness. Their cheeks aren't held out for slapping.
Two comments today blended in my mind. A friend of mine was talking about her daughters-in-law who vilify and mistreat her. I don't know them and can't judge them (couldn't even if I knew them) but I know the woman they are talking about and know her to be a kind and gentle woman. She was saying her priest once said to her in connection with the directive from the Sermon on the Mount to turn the other cheek, "It's not necessary, though, to keep going back to get the cheek slapped day after day after day." The other comment was from a taped reading of Emmet Fox's analysis of the Lord's Prayer. It was that the person we hate most in the world is a person we are inexorably bound to with the tightest bond we have to any other person. Only when we forgive that person can we set ourselves free from the chains. Forgive? How can you forgive the person you hate most in the world?
Forgive can mean to excuse for a fault or an offense, to pardon. That feels like it's just letting the person get by with something, that the person will not--cannot--reform because the actions don't lead to the natural consequences. That's the sense of "forgive and forget." It's going back to get the face slapped time and time again. It doesn't make good sense for frightfully wrongful behavior. It benefits nobody. Forgive can also mean to absolve from payment. Again, it can be a disservice to the person being forgiven.
The other meaning of forgive, though, feels right in the context of the Twelve Steps. That is to renounce anger or resentment against. That's what Fox proposes as the means of forgiving those who trespass against us. In a state of prayer and contemplation, we consider the person and release them, let them go. We bless them, cutting the chain so we can move forward in God's will. A person suggested once that I mentally place the offending person in a bubble, state that they are released, bless them, and visualize them either drifting away or speeding away, out of my space.
My friend told me how freeing, how peaceful it is not to be tied to the bickering of the daughters-in-law. She and her husband are there when their sons need them, but the spitefulness on the other side of the relationship doesn't hold them hostage to the pettiness. Their cheeks aren't held out for slapping.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Thinking about Uriah the (Innocent Victim) Hittite
Consider II Samuel 11:5-14.
As I sat in Sunday school this morning, the lesson dealt with the wrongs done by David and Bathsheba. The statement was made that Uriah the Hittite was totally innocent, and in my mind I started watching him write a 4th step inventory on the events. Certainly David and Bathsheba can be seen to have done wrong in the situation. But could Uriah find wrongs he did? I think he could.
Where was I selfish?
- I wanted to show the king how a Hittite was loyal, that we were not just the leftovers from a people conquered two hundred years earlier, that we have spunk and make great warriors. I wanted respect from the king.
- I wanted to look good, to have people know I hadn't even walked a stone's throw away to see my wife, that I cared about all the other soldiers out in the field who couldn't see their wives.
- I wanted to look good to the king and his close advisers in the same way, so I disobeyed his direct command to go to my house.
- I was full of pride the king wanted to eat and drink with me.
- I thought of my reputation and not the fact Bathsheba was alone and might need me, even briefly.
How was I dishonest?
- I should have let my wife know I was in Jerusalem and I didn't.
- I pretended it was all about the other soldiers and the Ark of the Covenant when I just wanted to look good.
- I convinced myself my depriving myself would make my fellows feel better about their own situation.
How was I self-seeking?
- I was thinking about myself and my ability to impress the king more than my wife.
- I set aside the scruples about not making myself comfortable in light of my fellows in the field when the king offered me drink and food at his table.
How was I frightened?
- The king had invited me to the palace, and I didn't know why. I wasn't about to give him anything to criticize me about.
Yep. Uriah was certainly victimized by King David, and depending on what independence Bathsheba had in the drama perhaps by her. But like OAs who proclaim they've done nothing wrong to inventory, that's a lie we tell ourselves.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Living Large
Recently one of my sons and his wife lost an unborn child. She chose to go through labor and delivery, and I had offered to come. My son was then trying to get back home from maybe 10 states away, and I was more than a thousand miles away from either of them. My daughter-in-law's sister called and passed on the message that my daughter-in-law did want me there, just didn't know how to say so. I made plane reservations and flew out before seven the next morning. It was absolutely the right thing to do, despite reservations from a family member. I remained abstinent through the trip. I must admit, though, I've struggled with abstinence in the week since I returned, but today I'm abstinent and will be the rest of today and day by day after this.
While I was there, my son had a second interview for a dream job. He felt his presentation was flat--and no wonder! His emotions were drained dry. He just called, though, to say he'll start working in that job in less than three weeks! And he and his wife won't be ten states away from each other except on exceedingly rare occasions, if then.
With some friends I had taken tentative steps in a new and exciting direction a couple of months before I found OA in December, 2006, but that enterprise has exploded. We're putting together anthologies, from soliciting the writing through selecting, editing, typesetting, and distribution, and our second will hit the streets by next week. We've turned our thoughts to the third, though, reading submissions.
The phrase that comes to mind on my new life is that ending the OA promise: "beyond our wildest dreams."
I lay in bed last night listening to an mp3 by Don P., and in an almost awake moment heard some aid in learning to follow the 11th step sought-after knowledge, "praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out." I followed the instructions and today I've been free from a recent lapse in both food choices and wasting my time with computer games. It worked. Now, I'll have to listen to it again to figure out what it was that worked! I'll let you know. Promise.
I've realized through working the steps one of my fears was actually the fear of success, and I'm now not so embarrassed about people telling me, "I don't know how you do everything you do." They've said that for years, but I knew I was piddling my life away, dabbling in writing. Now I still get told people are amazed but it's okay now, because I'm amazed right along with them!
I'm living a life large beyond my wildest dreams!
Monday, July 7, 2008
Quieting the Storm
Consider Matthew 8:23-27.
A woman I sponsor mentioned she anticipates storms in her area of the country today. That set me to thinking. Storms in large part are a matter of attitude--no matter which kind of storms we're talking about. When I went to graduate school in Nashville after growing up in the area and time about which Elmer Kelton wrote his classic The Time It Never Rained I was delighted that it sprinkled or rained almost daily in that part of Tennessee. I have a friend who dearly loves to sit out and watch the violent rainstorms we do occasionally have, though she was in a house a tornado skipped over when she was about five. I do love a good storm, though I don't like having a dog too big to easily get under (and our from!) the bed who cowers under it when thunder abounds.
But the storms we have to deal with in OA are those internal storms, and they're all a matter of mind over matter as well--or actually of getting your own mind out of it and turning it over to your higher power who quiets the storms within. Somebody I'm around often has a habit of saying to me, "God damn you!" Yesterday, my response was inspired. In a much calmer voice than the comment made, I answered, "God bless you!" You know, it had a much more quieting effect than those times when I've answered fire with fire. I've never invited damnation on anybody, but when that same person called me a b___ earlier in the long weekend, I called him a different "b" word impugning his mother. That one spattered out rather quickly, too, but not with the same quieting the storm effect.
Jesus' disciples were amazed. ""What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"
Miracles happen with the 12 steps, too:
God bless you! May your storms be delightful rain or lovely shows of power, but may your serenity prevail no matter what your present circumstances!
A woman I sponsor mentioned she anticipates storms in her area of the country today. That set me to thinking. Storms in large part are a matter of attitude--no matter which kind of storms we're talking about. When I went to graduate school in Nashville after growing up in the area and time about which Elmer Kelton wrote his classic The Time It Never Rained I was delighted that it sprinkled or rained almost daily in that part of Tennessee. I have a friend who dearly loves to sit out and watch the violent rainstorms we do occasionally have, though she was in a house a tornado skipped over when she was about five. I do love a good storm, though I don't like having a dog too big to easily get under (and our from!) the bed who cowers under it when thunder abounds.
But the storms we have to deal with in OA are those internal storms, and they're all a matter of mind over matter as well--or actually of getting your own mind out of it and turning it over to your higher power who quiets the storms within. Somebody I'm around often has a habit of saying to me, "God damn you!" Yesterday, my response was inspired. In a much calmer voice than the comment made, I answered, "God bless you!" You know, it had a much more quieting effect than those times when I've answered fire with fire. I've never invited damnation on anybody, but when that same person called me a b___ earlier in the long weekend, I called him a different "b" word impugning his mother. That one spattered out rather quickly, too, but not with the same quieting the storm effect.
Jesus' disciples were amazed. ""What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"
Miracles happen with the 12 steps, too:
If you persist, remarkable things will happen. When we look back, we realize
that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God's hands were
better than anything we could have planned. Follow the dictates of a Higher
Power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no matter what
your present circumstances! (AA Big Book, page 100)
God bless you! May your storms be delightful rain or lovely shows of power, but may your serenity prevail no matter what your present circumstances!
Monday, June 30, 2008
Welcome, Lady Salsa
You'll find a new OA blogger listed to the right, LadySalsa in Australia posting about her "journey to me." Welcome, kindred spirit! We love you!
Continuing in my perusal of "We Agnostics," Chapter 4 of the Big Book, I pause reading:
Of course besides the classic passage of God is everything or nothing stands on the opposite page from a powerful paragraph as well, the bedevilments. And yes, I often pause there, and I go back and seek them out to show people, to compare with the powerful promises set out in the text on Step 9.
Crutches, both physical walking devises and symbolic ones, serve a valid purpose. A speaker can have excellent command of a topic, yet rely so heavily on notes nothing but the bare essentials is communicated, passing on none of the passion or interest of the subject matter. As long as we work on not being hurt again, we don't strengthen muscles and reach full recovery, instead leaning on a walking stick or holding an injured arm close. After surgery on my shoulder, the stretching exercises inflicted sheer agony, even when I used the other arm to raise the injured one with a pulley device. Yet by going through that and learning not just to do it with a the device but later by creeping up the wall with my fingers, I reached the point the shoulder is actually stronger than the never-injured one.
"If I turn it over to God, who's going to move my parents, who's going to clean the kitchen, who's going to comfort my child?" The idea our world cannot function absent our control is a crutch. Telling God what he needs to do to help us is a crutch. Asking him for specific outcomes is substituting our will for his, a crutch of holding onto the control. Maybe there's some faith there, but it's about as helpless as the hurt arm. Turning it over to God is tough, like the Wright brothers getting in a machine and trusting it to fly. People had proven that was impossible! Had somebody not trusted beyond the powers of reason, we'd all be earth-bound. Unless you become like a little child, you can't get there, you can't find serenity, you can't find wings to fly beyond your wildest dreams.
In early 1974 I turned in my resignation to a wise man. I hated to do it, didn't want to disappoint him. But I was going to get married and leave that city. He made the conversation easy. He told me the hardest part of his job was getting and keeping good staff, but that everybody moved on sometime, and the enterprise would go on with somebody filling my role.
Today's For Today reading hits the nail on the head, speaking of turning over the responsibility for tomorrow's outcome to our higher power. At an OA meeting Saturday a gentleman spoke of the wisdom of his seven-year-old daughter. "What you're worrying about probably isn't going to happen, so I choose not to worry about it." We still move our parents, clean the kitchen, parent our child--but God controls the outcome and we can trust him.
God doesn't need us at the helm. He really can steer the ship. And he does it infinitely better than any of us ever could. Let's let him.
Continuing in my perusal of "We Agnostics," Chapter 4 of the Big Book, I pause reading:
- We talked of intolerance, while we were intolerant ourselves.
- In the face of collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure of their human resources, they found that a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them.
- ...they were making heavy going of life. Leaving aside the drink [food] question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory.
- The Wright brothers' almost childish faith....
- Logic is great stuff. We like it. We still like it. It is not by chance we were given the power to reason, to examine the evidence of our senses, and to draw conclusions.
- Hence we are at pains to tell why we think our present faith is reasonable, why we think it more sane and logical to believe than not to believe, why we say our former thinking was soft and mushy when we threw up our hands in doubt and said, "We don't know."
- ...either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What was our choice to be?
- We were grateful that Reason had brought us so far. But somehow, we couldn't quite step ashore. Perhaps we had been leaning too heavily on Reason that last mile and we did not like to lose our support.
- How much did these feelings, these loves, these worships, have to do with pure reason?
- What about people who proved that man could never fly?
Of course besides the classic passage of God is everything or nothing stands on the opposite page from a powerful paragraph as well, the bedevilments. And yes, I often pause there, and I go back and seek them out to show people, to compare with the powerful promises set out in the text on Step 9.
Crutches, both physical walking devises and symbolic ones, serve a valid purpose. A speaker can have excellent command of a topic, yet rely so heavily on notes nothing but the bare essentials is communicated, passing on none of the passion or interest of the subject matter. As long as we work on not being hurt again, we don't strengthen muscles and reach full recovery, instead leaning on a walking stick or holding an injured arm close. After surgery on my shoulder, the stretching exercises inflicted sheer agony, even when I used the other arm to raise the injured one with a pulley device. Yet by going through that and learning not just to do it with a the device but later by creeping up the wall with my fingers, I reached the point the shoulder is actually stronger than the never-injured one.
"If I turn it over to God, who's going to move my parents, who's going to clean the kitchen, who's going to comfort my child?" The idea our world cannot function absent our control is a crutch. Telling God what he needs to do to help us is a crutch. Asking him for specific outcomes is substituting our will for his, a crutch of holding onto the control. Maybe there's some faith there, but it's about as helpless as the hurt arm. Turning it over to God is tough, like the Wright brothers getting in a machine and trusting it to fly. People had proven that was impossible! Had somebody not trusted beyond the powers of reason, we'd all be earth-bound. Unless you become like a little child, you can't get there, you can't find serenity, you can't find wings to fly beyond your wildest dreams.
In early 1974 I turned in my resignation to a wise man. I hated to do it, didn't want to disappoint him. But I was going to get married and leave that city. He made the conversation easy. He told me the hardest part of his job was getting and keeping good staff, but that everybody moved on sometime, and the enterprise would go on with somebody filling my role.
Today's For Today reading hits the nail on the head, speaking of turning over the responsibility for tomorrow's outcome to our higher power. At an OA meeting Saturday a gentleman spoke of the wisdom of his seven-year-old daughter. "What you're worrying about probably isn't going to happen, so I choose not to worry about it." We still move our parents, clean the kitchen, parent our child--but God controls the outcome and we can trust him.
God doesn't need us at the helm. He really can steer the ship. And he does it infinitely better than any of us ever could. Let's let him.
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