The Well Worn Path

Tired. Stumbling from bed
to quell the wail of a wee one.
Full tummy, dry bottom,
too cold? Too warm?
What's wrong? Quiet,
wrapped in loving arms. 
Tired. Too much day ahead,
too little night behind,
tasks to do.
Powerless admitted,
belief in a power,
decision made
day after day
on other days.
Good habits laid down,
no thought needed,
doing the next right thing.

My Fearful Fear

"My fear is so afraid I'm going to leave it, it holds on with talons." (Anonymous)

Fear an emotion? Hardly.

Fear's an entity, a constant companion,

master of disguise, insidious, 

playing roles of procrastination,

terror, restlessness, irritability, 

discontent.... Fear is bitchiness,

foreboding, butterflies, cravings,

feelings of entitlement. 

Fear creeps up, whispers in my ear

it's not right to be happy, it's not fair

to feel good. Fear turns green, 

cackles like a witch and destroys

a fragile friend whose recovery shames me,

all to bring her down to my misery, 

to keep her as company for my disease.

Fear rules, haughty, arrogant, accustomed

to dominance. Fear fears only sanity,

knowing full well all these years

it held sway, could keep my sanity at bay.

Fear fears only my learning the truth,

that when I just ask God to remove my fear,

at once I begin to pass it by.

The Trouble with Determination

A will, a way; mouse or man,

Control yourself! If you really really can...

What's wrong with me?

Yes! I want to stop. 

And I've tried. God, how I've tried.    

I asked God to help me stop,

to give me the missing willpower.

Still I persist, miserable, ugly,

dying, insane. Insane.

It can't be a lack of spunk! 

Anything else I tackle, 

I doggedly see through.

If backbone worked, 

I'd be home free!

The trouble with tenacity

is the source, the me. 

God can't help me when 

I'm in his way. Insanity

trumps determination.

Detachment

Detachment is a gift. It will be given to us when we're ready for it. When we set the other person free, we are set free. (The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie)

Addiction to alcohol, drugs,
binge-eating, sugar, gambling,
shopping – then there's that wraith,
addiction to people.
Codependency – keeping sick
people sick, including us.
Enabling, excusing, covering,
perpetuating irresponsibility —
I've long practiced entanglement,
pulling everyone involved
to the depths of mire, despair, defeat.
"You" so dominate my thoughts,
yours are my emotions, preferences,
fears. Am "I" so pathetic I cannot learn
to be happy, so inept I do not know
what I think?

I have been. The character defect
to trump all the rest.
Fear snags me still. But I am
entirely ready to have God
remove this defect, all these defects,
these legions of defects.
God, I stand humbled by your love.
Please remove my defects
that stand in your way.

Finding the Holy

It is indeed from the experience of beauty and happiness, from the occasional harmony between our nature and our environment that we draw our conception of the divine life.

George Santayana

Raised in church,

steeped in religion,

theologian,

biblical scholar,

many came like me,

joined hordes of others —

all the rest in the Rooms —

to recovery and understanding.

Knowledge doesn't count,

membership doesn't matter,

holy is not holy enough

to really grasp the vastness,

the intimacy of power

ruling the universe

but completely involved

in me, in my life,

in my choices.

In recovery.

The Main Thing

“the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” ~~ Stephen Covey

"With such a crazy life,
how do you have time
to sponsor, to write??!"
With such a crazy life,
if I don't sponsor, don't write,
don't go to meetings,
don't work my program —
my life gets crazier, totally insane,
so I'm not up to it,
can't keep up with it,
and drop out of life,
of living,
of crazy-wild-beyond-it-all
wonderful!

God Is a Verb

Verb. An action, state,
occurrence. The main part
of the predicate – what happens
to the subject of the sentence.
Certainly I'm the subject.
Doesn't everything start with me,
end with me, center on me?
Not when God's really the verb.
Then he becomes the subject, too,
where everything starts with God,
ends with God, centers on God.
Me? I'm the direct object,
the thing God works on as the
subject and the verb.
If I walk in recovery,
if I let God be The Verb,
maybe, just maybe,
I become the predicate adjective
or maybe, someday, even
the predicate noun.

To a Hog

Would a hog be a hog

if he didn't hog? What makes

me me, what makes him him?

If you take him to England, 

maybe add a G, is he really a sheep?

What if he goes hog wild not being a hog?

Can a whole hog live high on the hog?

Take away the essence, the definition,

aren't you naked? How can I be me

if I lose half of me? How can I be fat

if I'm not? 

The Addictive Thinking Bridge

A writer in a blog on an online recovery site says, "What is addictive thinking? Well, the answer is actually quite simple. It is the bridge that allows us to deny what we intellectually know to be true and allows us to continue to engage in addictive substance use."

I deserve it, you know.
How could anybody keep on
day after day after day after day –
especially days like these, drama days
with exhilarating highs slammed down
by hellish nosedives, impossible to break.
It's not as though I'm so hopeless
I have to toe the mark, goose-step in line,
a lemming. You don't know what it's like
to be me. You may need all that rigamarole,
but I've got strength you'll never have.
Besides, I'm not hurting you or anybody else.
Well, yeah, it might hurt me, but what do you care?

So, what if it does hurt me? Maybe it does,
I guess, but who cares? Why? Why would you care?
That's so sweet. So, I'm not hurting anybody
if I bend the rules, or is that not true either?
Okay. I deserve recovery. Really, I do.
As long as it feels this good, day-after-day
after-day would feel pretty darned good.
Maybe it would really help in this drama,
wouldn't make me feel any better, or anything
different except stuffed, bummed out,
asleep on the couch. But it really might
hurt me. So Sponsor, I'll quit these crazy thoughts.
I'll recover for today.

That Book

I've read the Big Book. 

Three times through,

plus a year reading random pages,

know it, quote it, apply it.

Time to more on, to other books,

to history, to others inspired by the book.

Why not? What's to lose, it's there

inherent in all the rest.

It's here – visible – for comment,

for invitation to share, 

for connection with others in the rooms.

Part of the decor, part of my life

like the Bible gathering dust beside it.

Like the "Easy does it" mug or

"One day at a time" scrolling on the screen.

Still, rigorous honesty must win out.

It's not part of the program, but the basic text.

Maybe today or tomorrow or this month

it can sit untouched with impunity. 

But for how long? 

I don't want to know.

Home Lies Ahead

Home was Lubbock when I moved to Quanah,
Quanah when I went to college, and then
so many years until I'd not lived there
some forty years. I sit in the house
I've owned these sixteen years. Home?
Sure. But I sit in group, hear and say,
"Welcome home!" and know how much more true
that feels than such a tag to this address.

Home is not family of origin, or of choice,
or that I birthed, but home is where I'm loved,
where I sink into a warm bath of caring,
where my actions, my failures, my slips
can't stain or strain the bond.

Home is growing comfortable in me,
is realizing the guiding, loving presence
that hugs me home.

Bottoming Out

After a couple of days in dollar hotels and one night in the pokey... (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 219)

Skid row or hoosegow,
breaking ritzy chairs
or ER-panicked patching,
morbid obesity multiplied,
prostitution or a life of crime
to score the hits —
seems like bottom, feels like hell.

Yet bottom's deeper, steeper,
inside the hell of me. Hopeless,
helpless, worthless, ready to end,
willing to help, gun or bridge,
quicker than letting addiction
run the course. When EGO folds,
gives up, admits the rout —
that's it. Surrender. And from that abyss,
upside-down victory hard won,
since never sought —
from there, the dregs, hope-filled hands
reach up to pull us to recovery.

fear, we think...

This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives... Sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble. (Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 67-68)

Such a little word, is fear,
yet so totally dominant.
It sneaks in back doors,
breaks down walls, permeates
a favorite chair, crystalizes
in veins. Evil, corroding,
percolating.

Just a little word, is fear,
a relic of resentments, fossil
of disease. Analyzed, identified,
subjugated to trust, turned over
to one greater than, more than,
who gives calmness, serenity —
we laugh with joy and trust,
imbued with courage.

Amazed at gifts received,
we implore fear be extracted,
seek guidance on what to be,
commence to outgrow fear.

Spectacular Upheavals

Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes, or religious experiences, must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals. Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous. (Appendix II, Alcoholics Anonymous)

Spectacular —
dramatically delightful,
theatrically public.
Upheaval like an eruption,
displacement by
shifting tectonic plates.


"Be still and know
that I am God."
"Don't pray loudly, publicly.
Go in your closet, you and God."
Public piety, plastic prize.


God's exempt from rules,
sees hearts, straightens legs;
when touched in crowds,
stops to publicize power provided.
Spectacular upheaval is God's option.


When vainglory seeks display
notoriety or limelight may ensue.
Unspoken budding
willingness to be God-conscious
may cause publicly private
tectonic shifts.

When Will I Ever Learn?

Learn what?
What do I lack knowing?
I don't know my husband.
Heck, I don't know myself.
What is there to learn, though?
What does it mean to learn?
Gain or acquire knowledge or skills
by study, by experience
by being taught.
Commit to memory.
Become aware of by watching,
observing.

What knowledge or skills
might I acquire, could I gain?
Knowing the Big Book
innately, internalized, instinctively.
Using the tools, not just easy ones
like writing but the really tough ones.
Like the telephone.
What could I study? Ditto, ditto.
Then there are those unpleasant bits,
those character defects, those fears.
Oooohhhh. Scary.
Commit to memory?
I don't stumble much on 3rd and 7th prayers.
But that pesky "much" and all those
other pages...
What could I watch?
Where should I observe?
Should I start with me, now?
When will I ever learn?

Making Debts, Paying Debts

Death's the discharge of our debt of sorrow.

Seneca

A small debt produces a debtor; a large one, an enemy.

Publilius Syrus

An amend unmade

weighs like debt unpaid,

nibbles on capital

dribbling coins of fear

A day of recovery 

yields tender to repay

debts of mercy received

sitting in the rooms

devoid of hope,

of emotion,

of a future.

A smile bestowed on

helpless newcomer

ameliorates debt

of the former newcomer,

seeding recovery.

A Piece of Paper

A carelessness, missing signature —
the world pauses, resets as people await
the autograph. Frustration mounts,
plans put on hold.

Phone calls – "as soon as she walks out that door"
become worthless empty words, dead promises.
The would-be signatory
has gone to lunch
leaving people hungry,
irritated, frustrated.

Hours pass. Completed document faxed,
frustration, resentment, irritation allayed,
the wait would have been more pleasant
adding awareness of what we can't change
and the gift of serenity.

Affinity

ebb and flow
groundswell, peter out
instant soulmate, erstwhile friend

bonded for a reason
a godsend for the moment
for a predicament
problem solved
reason extinguished
paths diverge

united for a season
years, decades
lives entwined
braided forever
into other lives
yet seasons end
tangled vines die off
runners separate
put down roots in
foreign soil
as shoots seek our new bonds

other bonds spring
red-hot to life
fuse instant alloy
relationship so right
so tight
so integral
each knows this affinity
abides reasons, seasons, eons

Fear

Disguises abound —
fear masquerades as anger,
jealousy, greed, boasting,
low self-esteem or domination,
class clown or recluse.
Covered, buried, stuffed down
with addiction and compulsion,
fear prevails, broiling, roiling,
eroding life from within, never
really hidden, just masked
until ferreted out with honest
self-searching, routed by honest
self-seeing, with god as we grasp
that concept, and with a person
we expect to be repelled until
our naked souls find cover
and comfort with amazing love.

Mothering

Joy or pain, my own,
seems normal, due course,
unearned for joy,
my due for pain.

Joy or pain of my children,
adults now, transcends extreme,
insufficient for joy even if named
Nobel, Oscar, Medal of Honor;
unfair, overpowering for pain
even for a stumped toe, a reprimand.

My heart is taffy, pulled,
stretched to ribbon, joy for one
at parenthood,
sickened again with grief for the other
for joy squelched,
pain unfathomable
embers fanned by joy for brother.

At the Door

One foot in the room,

I stare at recovery,

at peace, longing for

joy lighting their faces. 

I haven't done so badly -- 

self-sufficient, quick, 

able to talk out of scraps.

"Half measures" they call it 

like they can read my mind.

Surrender they ask for, 

to some nebulous god.

If I slough off my old life,

what have I lost? 

Okay. I turn my back on 

crushed dreams,

step forward, 

willing for the door 

to close

me in.

Learning To LIVE love

How do I love you?
Let me count the ways.
Cooking for you,
cleaning for you,
waiting on you hand and foot,
taking orders,
running interference...

Wait. That's not love, is it?
Love goes both ways,
in the touch of a hand,
wanting to help, a kind word,
a secret shared without words.
Love is communication,
concern, compassion...
Love is when people care.

childish

Don't be such a baby. 
Grow up, will you??? 
What's the matter, 
not tough enough?
That's SO juvenile!
You're such a child!
When I became a man,
I put away childish things.

Let the children come to me,
God's kingdom belongs to
such as them. Don't we
need to be childish
to understand, to see
with perfect clarity?
Childhood is the kingdom
where nobody dies.
Recovery? Child's play.

But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

C.S. Lewis

Welcome Home!

The very practical approach to his problems, the absence of intolerance of any kind, the informality, the genuine democracy, the uncanny understanding which these people had were irresistible.§ 

"Welcome home!"
How silly the words
said to newcomers,
strangers among strangers,
fear-filled, angry, despairing.

"Welcome home!"
How true the words
right off, fresh out of the box,
said by people who seem
to have read your mind,
furtively watched you,
who know what nobody could.

"Welcome home!"
How prophetic, how right,
for once you sit down,
listen, feel, suspect the possibilities,
nowhere else will ever feel
so much like coming home.

§Alcoholics Anonymous: the "Big Book" 

(The key text of Alcoholics Anonymous) 

(Kindle Locations 2016-2018). ignacio hills press (TM) 

IgnacioHillsPress.com and e-Pulp Adventures (TM). Kindle Edition. 

Daily Duty

That submission wasn’t just a single act, however. It became a daily duty; it had to be that. Daily I am renewed in strength and I have never come to the point where I have wanted to say, “Thanks, God, I think I can paddle my own canoe now,” for which I am thankful.* 

Daily, one after another after another,
each day, whether I need it or not
because I need it most when I think not.
Duty, a legal or moral obligation, a task,
not what I want to do but what I need.
Daily because, like manna freely given,
it keeps poorly unless fresh and new,
God's gift. Duty because like medicine,
distasteful perhaps, right results appear.
I will do my Daily Duty dutifully until
I can do it willingly, for my best will
always wills it.

*Alcoholics Anonymous: the "Big Book" 

(Kindle Locations 3553-3555). 

ignacio hills press (TM) IgnacioHillsPress.com and e-Pulp Adventures (TM). Kindle Edition. 

Ceasefire

"And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol."* 

"During World War I, on December 24, 1914, there was an unofficial ceasefire as France, the United Kingdom, and Germany observed Christmas. No treaty was signed, and the war resumed after a few days."§

The fighting words keep flying,

aimed at me, pushing my buttons,

lighting the fires of fear, of fury,

triggering counter-attack

with ammunition that seems to fall

short of the goal, to slough off

without phasing except to cause

more insults, more derision.

So when can I cease the fighting,

find that sanity lost so long ago?

I can take my marbles and quit,

leave him empty-handed, wanting me

to up the ante. I can unplug my buttons,

make them empty shells, go my way

in peace. Maybe he will cease,

if only for a moment.

Maybe I can change the rules,

opting at this moment,

the only one I have,

for peace.

*Alcoholics Anonymous: the "Big Book" (The key text of Alcoholics Anonymous) 

(Kindle Location 1170). ignacio hills press (TM) 

IgnacioHillsPress.com and e-Pulp Adventures (TM). Kindle Edition.

§http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceasefire

Where Is the Zoo?

"Is that the only top you've got?"
"You know it isn't.
Do I have anything I could wear
with your approval?"
"Wear anything you please.
That makes you look like you work
in a zoo."

What you think about me
is none of my business.
I know, though, it's not about me,
not that you want me to look good,
nothing to boost my self-esteem.
It's all about you – and me
as your extension. 
Maybe you just don't want
people to think you could 
even possibly belong
in a zoo.

Guilt Is a Character Defect

God, I think I'm entirely ready
to be rid of my character defects —
but Sarah says Mary says GUILT
is one. How can that be?
And if it's true, what would life
be like without guilt?

The could-have, would-have, should-haves
my mother taught me, aren't they basic?
Can you live life without them?
What would happen to society
if we skip the remorse, the recriminations?

Forgiving others seems hard, going in,
but really it's not. After all,
they're sick, too, and meant well —
well, most of the times. But guilt?
That means forgiving me, doesn't it?
How can I do that? How can I let go
of guilt?

We Are Not Our Data

From the Hardin-Simmons University faculty roster from 2004-2005:

JOE W. DARNALL, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology; B.A., 1958, M.A., 1962, Ph.D., 1966, Baylor University; Post Doctoral study, University of Indiana Medical School, Institute of Psychiatric  Research 1969-1970. (Since 1975.) 

From the Abilene-Reporter News:

Dr. Joe W. Darnall, 74, died Tuesday, May 31, 2011. Arrangements pending with The Hamil Family Funeral Home, 6449 Buffalo Gap Road.

We are not our data, initials after names,
titles, honors, prestige. We cannot be splayed
on lines of type, in ink on paper,
pixels on a screen. We are not our data.


We are the influence on a pupil decades past,
an arm on a shoulder of a child now grandfather,
the encompassing embrace of a nestling great-grandchild,
a wife who can muse, "I know he's Up There 
laughing at me for being so silly!" comforted 
by three generations of Joe surrounding her, loving her.


Our legacy is not our data,
 but the seeds of life
we planted, cultivated, and nourished.






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