Your God

Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God..." ~ Ruth 1:16 R.S.V.

Ebby looked at Bill across the kitchen table.
Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?
From that point Bill figured out it was
a matter of being willing to believe
in a Power greater than him. But what if
even that leap can't be made? There is an option.
Adoption. Sometimes you can look at others,
find someone who has what you want,
and borrow theirs. They won't mind.
Neither will God. The god you come to understand
by acting as if you do.

The Yellow Brick Road

Have I followed Dorothy into Oz?
I find myself in the midst of a people,
odd somewhat but oh, so friendly,
praising me when it feels like
I've done nothing worthy, when I come
confused, befuddled, lost, desperate...
They point to a clearly marked path,
promise wondrous possibilities,
promises, even, at the way's end.
As I step along the way, I meet people
helpful to me, good companions,
aiding my understanding.
As I get to the end of the well-marked road
I come to understand that it's going to work,
there's no someone else with the perfect answer
but with guidance from some power not understood
I get what I really wanted even if it's not what I thought
I wanted when I started.

Settled

Settled. As in stodgy.
I never would have thought
such a state would seem
a state of bliss. But compare!
A constant state of agitation,
of fear, of anxiety, of guilt
of hatred, of jealousy...
or all of them flung helter-skelter,
one after the other to craft a life
of agony.

That was my life but no longer.
Settled. Stodgy? Well, maybe,
but I prefer life on a high plain,
a delight, a dream of peace,
of serenity, of love!
I welcome a settled life.

Cookie Monster, History Amended

Jim Henson came up with a blue fuzzy character,
one who gobbled cookies, growled "Me want cookie!",
"Me eat cookie!", and "Om nom nom nom."
The Muppets may first have put googly eyes
with the voracious appetite but generations
before have shared the trait of eating not just
a food of choice – quite often cookies or other sugary treats —
but anything and everything, including danishes, donuts,
lettuce, apples, bananas, as well as normally inedible objects.
Who knows who the first ancestor might have been
to carve out that set of traits. Could it be soon after the Garden
and that original sin issue the second was gluttony, cravings,
eating everything but the tree of knowledge? Of maybe
chewing on the bark from that...
The creator of cookie monsters was not Jim Henson.
Cookies and apple fritters and Blizzards and Blasts,
bread pudding and rum cake and date nut pies...
these things create cookie monsters. They made one of me.
But the most fun thing I can tell you? I've sat here,
writing this poem, Googling trying to figure out
the name of the cake I thought best. I can't remember,
can't find it. And I'm not a cookie monster today.

Stupid!

"This is stupid!" I said it aloud,
getting into my car, talking to God.
The subject of the comment
was my purchase
at the convenience store
ironically named "Skinny's."
I had in my hands an apple fritter
and a cappuccino. Disgusted,
I ate it though the purchase,
the compulsion, the date of the
decision eight days before Christmas,
and my unquestioning commitment
to stop the compulsion --
not just start a new diet --
made no sense to my logical mind.
But logical doesn't work, never did.
Surrender does. Even when it feels
so totally stupid.

Two Perspectives

Next Week I've got a big week next week and a stuffy nose and deep cough tonight. I need to be able to function in seven days, and my eyes hurt, can't focus, feel so very tired. My husband is ill, his mother, too, and I need to be here to care for them, to see them through. But they can function even if I desert them. They can. I know. I'll be worthless there, needed here. Should I make arrangements not to go? I feel so powerless, so inept, so unable...

Next Week Things look kind of bleak right now but it's temporary. I'm medicating my cold, taking care of myself, getting rest. I've prepared for the conference, have worked things out for the house. Maybe it's not the easiest week for me to go but it will all work out. I don't have to borrow worry from next week. I cannot control that, can control very little, but though I'm powerless I have a Power who wants what's best both there and here.

You People!

I come in here embarrassed,
eaten with grief, and you hug me.

I tell my deepest darkest secret
and tears run down my face

but when the next person
starts to share I find myself

blotting a tear and laughing out loud
as I sit here, basking in the love.

If You Knew Me

You would hate me.

You would be disgusted.

You would pity me,

feel my shame, disdain me.

You could not love me...

not even like me...

if you knew me.

Nobody wants to be my friend.

No one covets my presence.

You may admire those things I do well

but they're not important

in the grand scheme of things.

I'll stay here, alone.

Alone with my food,

with my comfort,

with my self-loathing

stuffing my face to hide the me

that I'm convinced you have to see.

If you knew the me I think you know

the love and acceptance you aver

for me would be mythical, nonexistent,

impossible.

But that's not what I see in your face.

How can I learn to think as much of me

as you do as soon as we meet?

Thank You, No.

Brother, you see my misery,

my inability to lose weight,

to live a normal life
and you want to tell me,
to show me, what worked

when you were there.

I can see you've changed,

you're different, but it's your way,

not mine. I have analyzed

the steps, thought them through
and I'm not willing to yield

to some power greater than me.

Leave your arguments,

your explanations.
Don't you understand

a prophet is without honor
in his own family?

Sparse Dove

Do doves suffer inferiority complexes?

The mourning dove, named for grief...

common ground dove, surely not uncommon...

the white-winged dove as opposed

to the white-tipped dove... the inca dove

named for a people who lost the fight

five hundred years ago. 

Yet how beautiful, how graceful

and long accepted as the very symbol

of grace, of God's presence,

of love.

Do you suffer an inferiority complex?

Does it seem everyone gets this program,

everybody progresses, all have found peace

and you remain confused, conflicted, ill-at-ease?

Are you comparing their outside to your inside?

Are you really so sparse, so like a common dove

as you sometimes feel? Have faith.

You are promised great things,

recovery beyond your wildest dreams.

Hear the history.

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.*

That leaves you the dove of love, of peace,

not some fictive sparse dove in need. 

Page 50, Alcoholics Anonymous

My Third First Meeting

I'd been to OA a dozen years earlier
and dismissed it, a babbling crowd
chanting nonsense, acting silly...
or so it seemed. Oh, how I wish I'd stayed.
I decided to try again one mid-December,
eight days before Christmas,
but who starts a food program
with Christmas, New Years
and London on the calendar's page?
Returning from London it took two weeks
to clear up the time on my datebook,
but I was going to get to the meeting.
Snow, ice...school closures, cancellations...
I drove across town s.l.o.w.l.y.
But nobody else was there,
for they knew each other, had agreed.
My third first meeting the next week
but to nonsense my first impression.
I had come home, had found my folk
and it truly was affirmed...
the third time was the charm
and changed my life
so I'll never leave.
There will not be a fourth first meeting.

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When you have tried them all and more,
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(NOT EASY!) steps.

OA Doesn't Work for Me

I know it works for you guys, but I don't have your hangups.

Besides, it's just for middle-aged pudgy – or massive – white women.

I may, just might, be powerless over food but I can manage life just fine.

Thinking there's some deity up there pulling strings is so archaic!

The Big Book's sexist, obsolete, has nothing to say to me.

You're such sad cases, can't lose the weight, but I've got willpower.

You just chant phrases, talk the talk...your rituals are pathetic!

I bought your books, I'll read them someday, but have no time each week.

I'll come back after the holidays, but I've got to take a break just now.

Everything you say is just a lie to placate your weak pathetic minds!

That First Compulsive Bite

Abstinence. So hard-won.

Fear. So gargantuan.

Craving. So precipitous.

Temptation. So pervasive.

Insanity. So inexorable.

Life. So unmanageable.

Food. So duplicitous.

Regret. So nauseating.

Contrition. So inevitable.

Letting the Balloon Drift

Forgiving is not forgetting

but it's letting go, not thinking of,

releasing. Like imagining

the hurt, slipping it into Mylar,

inflating the balloon
watching it drift away.

Forgetting can be harmful

if past behavior must serve to warn

of need to protect, of caution.

Forgiving is not forgetting

but the concentration,

the constant awareness,

the resident resentment

drifts away. Maybe forgiving
is closer to forgetfulness.

Flotsam

Broken lives,

flotsam on the shore

sought out, gathered,

dried out, mended...

like found art, the best,

the closest to real art

set out, lovely to look at,

not copies but real art,

the hard edges rounded,

ugly courseness softened.

The new creation, crafted

from detritus becomes

whole, perfect, masterpieces

not through self, not through will.

From broken lives beauty,

serenity, recovery.

The Cabbage Patch

The seeds are so little.

And there are lots in the package.

I planted them all.

But what do you do

with all that cabbage?

We didn't like to eat cabbage,

not that much.

That little package

of tiny seeds held a big message...

You get what you ask for...

even if you don't understand

what you ask for.

Forecast

The future is an enigma

for the most part, but not always.

For one thing, I know mine

should I decide to go it alone,

to leave these rooms of recovery.

If I fall back into the food...

and if I leave that's a given...

then it won't be the same as it was.

My addiction will be exponentially worse

since it's been festering, growing,

proliferating in spades!

 

Last House on the Block

I tried others first...

like for fifty of my sixty years.

I found no shelter,

no sanctuary,

no respite.
Sure, some places

helped for a while

but none for long,

none to the point of there.

Always a wayside stop,

a failure to offer succor.

I know the levity in speaking

of finding the treasure
the last place you look...

only because you stop looking.

But recovery resides here

and nowhere else.

If I left and tried to find help

it wouldn't be there for me.

Maybe for someone else,

but not for me.

Thank God for the last house...
because it really was the last hope.

Whac a Mole

It's like the game of Whac a Mole... but I'm going to lay down the mallet. ~ Miranda O'Donnell

Frizzled, frantic, frustrated.
Serenity has left the building.
Oppressed by things to be done,
by ingratitude of people around,
by my inadequacy, by my ineptness.
But that's what's inside, what's in front.
It's not what should be, not what needs to be.
It's external, my insecurities arising,
my low self-esteem, my controlling need
to be perfect, either perfectly awesome
or absolutely awful, but perfect.
I don't need this, don't want this.
I need not whack any more moles.
God, grant me serenity to accept,
courage to change, and wisdom to know.
Amen. So be it.

On Awakening

Quiet in the house,
sleep lingers, dreams climax
as dawn creeps into the garden.
Like Eve she steps out, expecting
and finding company,
a Power beside her.
She thinks of the calendar,
the issues, the challenges
seeking direction in her thoughts,
asking that self-pity,
dishonesty, and self-seeking
miss the bus, don't catch her.
She mulls possibilities
finding answers arise,
lifting heads like baby birds.
For thoughts and decisions
wise answers bob up
like morning glories.
Inspiration comes, easy, comfortable,
so often she expects it,
relies on it. As time draws near
for the house to wake
she pauses once more,
asking to know through the day
the next right step.

Outside

You want me to write a poem

about what's outside that door?

Don't you know if I walk out there

I'll be on the filthy patio? That

piled out there are the tools

I was too tired to put up on Thursday?

The dog will want me to play

and the trees are budding

and if I don't pull off the new growth

below the limb level I'll be out there

this fall with a pruning saw.

There's nothing but weeds there

and it spattered rain today.

Not enough to wet a twig

but enough to make the dog's feet

and mine bring in the wet.

You want me to go outside?

To feel the peace?

There's no peace outside

or in. Because there's none

in me.

Walking with Lao Tzu

An ancient Chinese philosopher

said a thousand-mile journey begins

with one step. And he said

if you don't change direction

you may end up where you're headed

and that a good traveler has no fixed plans

and is not intent on arriving.

Language and culture aside

it seems he would have fit easily

into a 12-step group, perhaps amused

the steps were numbered

and repeated again and again,

maybe the two hundred thousand

or so times necessary to walk

a thousand miles twelve steps

after twelve steps would feel right.

But he would know if we kept going to ruin
as we were when we got here,
without turning around we'd get there,
whether we started at rock bottom
or pretty well functional.

And he'd have known when we walk

into the rooms and change our direction

we're going to get to the goal we seek,

to restoration to sanity, to a recovery

beyond our wildest dreams. All we need do

is to not turn back but keep walking

one step at a time one day at a time

then doing it all over again.

And enjoy the journey,

because the destination and the past

are not things we can take care of

today.

Since I'm Here

I didn't want to be here.
Who would have thought
two months ago
when I said I'd keep a key
that a day like today would come?
I don't want to be here.
I feel miserable,
back in the disease,
hungover on sugar
and mad at the world.
But I'm the only one
who could open the building
and I knew if I ditched it
you'd all be calling, asking.
I don't want to be here.
But what you say speaks to me.
I needed this. I belong here.
Since I'm here,
I'll come a bit further
along the road of recovery.

It Shall Be Opened

Hopelessness.
Isolation.
Loneliness.
In desperation I come
without hope,
devoid of optimism,
seeking entry
to the very last door
on the block,
on the street,
before the cliff.
If only earlier I had known
the guarantee, the promise.
I need not have tried
all those doors before...
I'd have skipped to the one
that will be opened.

Eve Grabbed the Apple

The apple was there,
the desire was there,
Eve was there
and she took it,
grabbed it, owned it,
controlled.

Bounty was there,
grace was there,
God was there
and he offered it,
willed Eve to accept it,
grateful for the gift.
Her failure was not
in having the fruit
but in avarice.

A Disease!

Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors.  ~ American Society Of Addiction Medicine, Web site, 2013  (www.asam.org)

Gee, Officer Krupke, 
We're down on our knees, 
'Cause no one wants a fellow with a social disease.And nobody wants to have a disease
we've been told is deficit of willpower
all out lives. Not wanting to have it
we decline to believe, to accept,
that it really is a disease,
that we've been right all these years
yelling, It's NOT MY FAULT!!
We've blamed it on others
for raising us not to waste food,
for driving us to need the comfort,
to crave the satisfaction.
We don't want a disease,
doubt the literature so naming it,
and run from the diagnosis.
Until suddenly a light grows,
gets our attention, convinces us to stop!
To listen! And then we have ears to hear.
They're calling this a disease.
It's not my fault! And it's not yours.
It's an addiction to the food on my plate.
Hey, I got a social disease!

Faithful to the Chair

It's not a commitment to calm my mind,
to guide my thoughts, to follow my breath,
to pray, to envision my life with God.
It's only got to be a commitment to the chair.
I get there every day, sit there a proper time,
bring with me my honesty,  my feelings, my fears,
my concerns, my panic or peace.
It only a need to be faithful to the chair
and to trust the other part of the conversation
to take it from there.