Paths

A hundred years of nights and days
since Robert Frost surveyed two paths,
while time caromed through history's maze
and culture burst with heat that crazed
the china mores of the past.

A simple time, a wooded place,
within, without, choose this or that.
New England's order, peace and grace
mock Texas plains where rocks replace
leaf-covered ways with vast grass mat.

Nothing stands to block my way;
a hundred paths each step could birth.
I long for order – yea or nay –
as choices wail to have their say
and force a measure of their worth.

Would Frost concede the challenge worse
or scorn the shallow weight I give,
my literal reading of his verse?
I'll never know. We can't reverse
time's path but each the now will live.

This Path (Kindle Locations 91-108).

Futility and Fatality

We have listed and analyzed our resentments. We have begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous (Kindle Location 1014).

Who can rant and rave about wrongs perceived
and entertain a wisp of a thought these resentments
might be fatal...for the feeler not the recipient.
After all, when we're wishing them dead or bankrupt
or attacked by a herd of buffalo, we're just there cheering,
not being attacked. But the hurt doesn't reside
with the wrongdoer. Oh, it might, but that's their resentment,
not ours. How can the boomerang turning back on us
be fatal, or merely futile? Because we're carrying poison
and not in a safe container! No, in our heart and mind.
And it can never hurt the evildoer, not our resentment.
It's our feeling inside us, and the corrosion injures us.
And only when we get that truth can we release the poison
and heal ourselves by accepting the gift that brings.

Ever Want to Be a Simpleton?

I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. ~ Ecclesiastes 1:16-18 KJV

 Wisdom resembles madness and folly.
Chasing folly’s more fun, catching’s less.
He’s being vain again.
Ever want to be a simpleton?
Ever envy a dog’s life? Chasing folly.
Hiding bones.
Scratching. Sleeping.
Romping.
Ever envy a dog’s life?
The faith of a little child,
simple faith,
no complications, great rewards.
Heaven.
Like riches, wisdom hinders the quest.
Bones stay hidden
for we’re too smart to dig
for the fun of it.

God, when you made me smart were you mad
at me? Didn’t you know I needed peace?
Let there be peace on earth. And please
count me in on it.

Rollins, Barbara B. (2011-12-29). A Time for Verse - Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes (Kindle Locations 132-137).

10th Step Promises

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone — even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality— safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition (Kindle Locations 1279-1284).

Sanity will have returned. We started the quest at Step Two,
came to believe a power greater than us could restore us...
to sanity. Of course some of us doubted that "restore" word...
we'd never been there, it seemed. Oh, but didn't we want it,
long for it, crave it as much as we had any substance, any behavior.
Tempted? We recoiled! How neat is that? To suddenly flinch back
in fear, in horror, in disgust from the very substance or behavior
we craved, we sought, we found refuge in...not refuge from.
But to act sanely, to be a normie, automatically! It gets no better
than that. And it just comes. The tricks, the conniving, the colluding,
the intrigue, the scheming we've used forever! Gone!Safe and protected, we look around and it's gone, temptation removed.
And that promise. Oh, that promise! THIS IS OUR EXPERIENCE!
It just happens...
so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
Sigh. Not so easy we come to take it for granted.
But we feel it, can remember the past and wish it good riddance,
so long as...

A Letter to My Daughter

My dear daughter,
I know what I did to you
and I know now that you know
the how and why. I passed on
to you my hair color, my eyes,
even my moles, but those are fine...
the problem was I passed on as well
my insecurities, my fears, my habits
and the ways I used to deal,
the hidden eating, the snacks
in the car then hiding the evidence...
but I guess a parent seldom knows
how much the child sees,
admiring and learning just because
it seems like honoring your parent,
doing what I did, not knowing
how I despised it. Dear,
I've watched you as an adult,
how you made yourself miserable,
copying me in the choice of men,
in how you dealt with them,
in trying to earn their love...
I know it didn't work for you

any more than it did for me.
But I've seen you, too,
work out your life with those meetings
and I love what it does for you
and I love that you're passing on
to my grandchildren better
than what I passed to you.

Not Willing

I prayed for God to keep me from eating my binge foods. I ate food that had fallen into the trash. I ate food that I knew was addictive. Then came the realization: I was not willing. ~ Voices of Recovery (Kindle Locations 2705-2706). 

I prayed. I ate. I ate. I knew. I was not willing.
But that can't be true! I've prayed to be willing.
I've prayed to be willing to be willing. 
Whatsoever you ask in my name, that will be given...The spirit is willing. But there's that pesky other,
but the flesh is weak. I want this or that, God willing.
Well, the this or that I want is recovery, is good, 
is alignment with His will for me, and God is willing.
But then again, that's not the problem. 
I know it's an addiction, I know I don't need the crud,
I know that the better, the right way for me
is God's will. And, to be redundant, that's not the problem.
God is willing. I say I am. I pray to be willing.
I pray to be willing to be willing...but I'm not willing.
The flesh is weak. The flesh pulls me down.
God in me, my will in God's, that's what's good!
But when I do not do what I would do, wicked woman I am,
For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, 
waging war against the law of my mind 
and making me a prisoner 
of the law of sin at work within me.God, I believe. Help my unbelief. Make me really willing.

Essential Change

We must change if we are to recover. Change begins with honesty. As we work the fourth step, we develop a new ability to see our own dishonesty and a greater willingness to live by truth. ~ The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous (Kindle Locations 347-348)

Seeing my dishonesty. The lying?
I've always known that is
even when it felt there was adequate cause...
just cause. Righteousness. But it's a lie.
The lie and the justification.
But the other dishonesty.
There are the lies of omission.
The things the other has a right to know
but you're chicken (or chicken-sh**)
and fearful to tell the truth.
Hiding your hurt or your feelings,
cheating yourself by acting as if it's okay.
Lies to myself. I'm too stupid, not okay,
unworthy, clumsy, ugly, lower than.
But I can be honest when I face the fear.
I can be honest and accept the truth.
And doing that I can grow, I can change...
I can become who I want to become.

At Some Point, Policy Rejects Mercy

Many Christian denominations comply with the teaching of tithe. However, some groups go to the extreme. They require a disclosure of all income “for accountability.” Noncompliance ends in expulsion from the congregation. Bureaucratic legalism rules. At some point, policy rejects mercy. ~ Jo Helen Cox

Mercy. An old-fashioned word.
Compassionate treatment,
especially of those under one's power.
Clemency. We want to be merciful
but would call it kind, considerate...
Yet, do we want to be lenient?
It depends on the recipient.
Sometimes. Yet one-rule-fits-all
can never be tolerant. People
are different. Different rules fit different folk.
My ways don't work for you
for your needs differ, your response,your history. And I must understand
that my way is my way, yours is yours,
and when it's aligned with the path you choose
and that path is the one I choose,
we can travel together in different ways.

The Big Picture for the Insecure

What can be more of a nothing
than the lowly five of clubs?
In bridge, clubs are the lowest suit
and in any context...trying for high
or for low, wouldn't it seem useless?
But it's not! A hundred ninety-two
combinations of four other cards
make a straight flush...
and that's light years from useless.
But the five of clubs fits into...
all the possible straight combinations
from ace to five through five to nine,
all the flushes with any for other clubs,
three of a kind, four fives, two pairs,
full houses...the possibilities
defy computation but leave little doubt
no individual card...no specific person...
lacks value, lacks astounding worth,
in situations we fail to consider
when we stand stuck in the conviction
of insignificance.

A Puzzlement

God, I offer myself to Thee – to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. 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. May I do Thy will always! ~ Third Step Prayer, Alcoholics Anonymous

I stumble often over this prayer, knowing it,
but insisting on editing it. I know better,
but still I wonder...Why not Thy Love, then Thy Power,
and Thy Way of life? Doesn't love come first?
Is the Power thing that important? What's power
without love? The first and greatest command
is to love God, the second to love your neighbor...
Faith, hope and love abide but the greatest is love...
God is love. Where does it say God is power?
(I know, I know. Fourth chapter of 1st Corinthians,
but work with me here.) Why would you lead with the power,
end with the way of life and bury love in the middle?
Well, look at the context. It's a request to take away tough
not for the person praying but to bear witness 
to those I (and God) would help. And it's the power that shows.
These folk knew us or others like us and knew powerlessness.
They see power. And seeing power they can see love,
and they crave love, almost as they crave a sane way of life.
The founders knew best. God, take away my difficulties
to show my pals you give me power...power to love
as well as power to have the way of life beyond my dreams.

If...

If you can make good picks at all-you-can eat
buffets and stop when you have had enough,
If you can see your eyes with thoughts that treat
with love and not lambast with words too tough,
If thoughts of body contours leave you aghast
and large or small obsess about your size
And have disdain for choices now and past,
obsess on hurts, your part not realize:

If year by year you lose then gain back more
than all that you have lost and hate yourself,
If life would be just fine if only for
the weight and all would work with help from elf,
If no one understands and all the world attacks
and helping others gains you no respect
And all that you might do up to the max
OA is meant for you, I do expect.

Seeing with Closed Eyes

I remember her telling me to close my eyes and listen with my heart to all the similarities. ~ Jhe T

Unity with diversity. We are one.
We may not look the same.
Some are homeless, dressed in tatters,
dirty, uneducated. Others are professors,
with strings of degrees, published papers renowned.
Some dress as fashion-plates, others clash,
plaids and stripes of garish hues.
Skin tones from ivory to taupe, bald pates,
cornrow braids, unruly tangled waist-length hair.
Scowls, rolled eyes, sarcasm telegraphed by gestures.
Movements that some other person, somewhere else,
used and tainted their meaning in our thoughts.
People who answer the phone and say, "This is she"
beside someone who mangles the mother tongue.
It's easy to judge the inside by the outside.
But it's the inside that counts and the outside lies.
Close your eyes. Listen to the words, the emotions,
the fear, the hope, the love. Close your eyes
and learn who you're with.

The False Self

The false self is like any other living thing, it does’t want to die. ~ Miranda

All life hangs in there. The mosquito
cannot know you're trying to squish her
but dips and dives and avoids most swishes.
The animals with the least brain power
of some other moving factor make so many young
that the species will survive. All life forms want life.
Even those thinking of ending life want it...
just not what they perceive their own to be.
The false self we spent decades building,
learning to act as if we didn't care when we did
and ached to be included, to have things, to be...
That false self can see the new will be better
but intuitively sees they can't coexist so miserably
lonely and useless...that false self holds to life,
blocking us from recovery. But if we want to live...
and we do...if we want joy and peace and love...
and we do...if we know we can be better, if not on our own
through a power greater than we...
But the false self holds on until it's been around long enough
to catch the joy, to want recovery, and to change
to truth and joy and peace.

Self-portrait in Madrid

Freedom

Step Seven is freedom from running the show. ~ Heard in a meeting

Step Seven.
Humbly asked Him 
to remove our shortcomings.
Freedom from running the show.
I can't control which defects go
once I become willing to let them.
We pray that our Higher Power
remove them...not all of them,
but those that stand in the way
of my usefulness to You and my fellows.I can't insist God remove my impatience...
and that He do it right now!
I can't let go of gossip because
I can't remember any of the good stuff.
I can't run the show. Because it's no longer
my business to improve me. I just show up,
let go, do the next right thing, and leave control
to the Power who Can.

Remember Your Creator

Remember your Creator
in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
and the years approach when you will say,
“I find no pleasure in them” —

before the sun and the light
and the moon and the stars grow dark,
and the clouds return after the rain; (Ecclesiastes 12.1-2 NIV}

 

Youth need not be wasted
on the young.
Nature may lead a child
to myopia
but grandparents,
teachers,
occasionally a parent
wise beyond years,
may plant seeds of
prescience, of discernment,
of faith.
Blessed indeed
is the beneficiary
of such a bequest.

God, let me remember you now,
even when my youth has passed.
Let me remember you in sunlight and gloom,
in fair weather and foul.
Let me find pleasure in each day,
with you.

Barbara B. Rollins A Time for Verse - Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes (Kindle Locations 279-291)

More Better

There's always more better. ~ Vonage ad

Good enough is not good enough.
Better can be more better.
We walk into the rooms of recovery
helpless, hopeless, beaten and downtrodden.
Expecting a diet or a drying out or a way to quit
we find not the specific solution...which we know
didn't work the fifty-four times we tried it before.
But we find better. We find hope. We find a life.
And since it's greater than we ever had
it feels like the pentacle, the ultimate, the zenith.
Don't leave, though, believing you've found nirvana.
Don't leave, because that's not all. There's more.
Wait for more better then more and more and more!

Hug Often

It's easy to find people on the internet,
in magazines, in all kinds of places
telling you to hug often, explaining benefits,
expounding scientific proof thereof.
It's harder, though, to find people
willing to hug, not staring at you
expecting depravity to come with the asking.
But it feels good, affirms like nothing else can.
When you can't find the hugs you need
find a bunch of recovery people
and hug what you can, as much as you can,
as long as you need the hugs.

Will I?

One question faces each person: “Will I trust God today?” ~ Jo Helen Cox, God Makes Us Holy

Trust. A firm belief in reliability, truth,
ability or strength. Acceptance of truth
without evidence or responsibility.
How do you trust what you haven't seen,
don't know, can't examine?
If you don't trust people, the weather,
your family, anything or anyone...except your dog...
if you don't even trust yourself, how can you,
how do you trust God?

You think about the promise the burden is light,
the yoke... the connecting link...is easy.
You think about a God from whom you can't be separated
by death, life, angels, principalities (whatever that is),
height, depth, power...anything! You gather a whole bouquet
of promises. And if worse comes to worse...
you act as if you trust him and it becomes true
if you do it often enough, long enough.
You don't have to commit for a lifetime.
Act on it today. And if that's too long,
then act like you trust your God right now
and leave everything else for now.

The Power of Choice

Working my program has also given me the power of choice with regard to food. ~ Abstinence, Second Edition (Kindle Locations 2405-2406).

I am powerless over food
and my life has become unmanageable.
That's true! Always has been, for me,
and always will be! But I can't give up
on program, on me, on life, on recovery!
I get part of my power back each day
one day at a time, as I work my program.
When I stuff things in my mouth
it's a conscious decision!
Maybe not the opening of mouth,
the bingeing, the avoidance, the agony...
but I consciously stopped doing program.
Maybe I was conscious of just not having time,
of skipping reading or calling my sponsor
or prayer and meditation, of tenth steps,
eleventh, of remembering to be willing to be willing.
I was conscious at one point and at that point
I gave it away, refused the gift...
of abstinence and recovery.

Just a Bite

You offer a bite, urge me to eat,
you made it for me, it's to die for,
what do I think of the recipe,
will it work for the big event,
what more seasoning does it need...
You have your reasons
and I understand them
but do you not see
the damage you ask me
to endure? It takes only a bite...
to cause me to fall into the abyss,
to go on a binge not to end
until I've regained a hundred pounds,
and added some more,
to destroy the work and improvement
It took me fourteen years to achieve.
Yes, a single bite can hurt.

Paying the Price

The boys know now that the cost of coming out of their bedroom is a toy, and they bring it when they come. ~ David Rollins speaking of four-year-old twins.

It comes with a price
and often we know full well
what that price is.
Sure you can have that ice cream,
that fritter, that candy...
but it triggers the obsession
and maybe you'll recover
the freedom from compulsion,
the physical addiction,
the sanity to hold onto the promises.
It may seem like just $3.29,
some price you're willing to pay.
But that's downpayment only,
deceptively small. Like extortion,
hush money. There's more to come.
It's stepping on an iced-over pond
hard as heck to get back on solid ground.
When you feel compelled to stop at a drive-through
ask yourself. Are you willing to pay that price?

Bill's Story

Mother chose a career, left Bill
so her parents raised him. 
Grandpa passed on faith
or lack thereof, disdain
for hypocrisy. 

Into the Army, 
the war to end all wars, 
people introduced him
to the alcohol 
Grandpa warned against.

Marriage brought grandiosity
rather than children
and alcohol consumption
par excellence.

He descended into
perfection in decadence,
a wasted life once bright,
full of hope, no longer 
exorbitance, surfeit.

Until desperation
and fortune brought together
three snippets of wisdom
and a low enough low
to light the spark
that became recovery.

Being Good

I no longer have to try to be “good.” God does it for me. ~ Voices of Recovery (Kindle Location 2000).

How often I tend to report to my sponsor,
"I was good" or "I behaved"?
That's a diet mentality, governed by willpower,
centered on myself. Then when it's not true
I say "the food called me," "she insisted,"
"I couldn't help it!" How backwards!
I'm powerless over food. That's well established,
proved by decades of trying, failing, blaming,
resolving, starting over, failing again.
When things go right, I've done only one thing right...
released it, turned it over to a power greater than I.
When I fall back into the food, that's the time I did it,
I claimed it, I took back my will. And that's the time
it might as well be a diet because no matter what I call it
that's what it is and for me, a diet's always going to end
in failure.

Compulsive

I identify as a compulsive overeater,
recovering, and a sugar addict.
I didn't create the language, but it's mine.
Compulsive is an adjective describing
an irresistible urge, especially against
a person's conscious wishes. Addicted
is an adjective as well. So both apply to me.
What does that mean? "That which I would do,
I do not, but what I would not do, I do."
I'm powerless. Not just over food, over eating,
but over life. I can't do this alone despite the facts
I have substantial intelligence, a way with words,
ability to do things I want to do...most things.
Which made it more absurd I couldn't control
my body, my life, my food, my sanity.
I adopt the words compulsive and addicted
today, and each day as it comes,
and with that understanding, knowing
the truth inherent in the words, powerlessness,
find in that embarrassing truth both serenity and joy.
I claim who I am because understanding who I am
I know I can take twelve simple steps
to peace and freedom.

Stronger Now

Because you are stronger now, after all the crap has happened, than you ever were back before it started. ~ Alysha Speer

What's the difference
between agonizing about insults,
dwelling on slights,
having a pity-party for the mess
you've been handed, the cards dealt...
and accepting it, denigrating it
in passing, learning a way to do it
after trying fifty-three that didn't work?
What's the difference between a scowl
and shaking your head, astounded by the crud?
Why should you remember that obnoxious song
and keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side...with no pain when you go insane?
What's the difference? The crap happens.
But if you laugh it off, learn from it, mark one
that doesn't work in the search for one that does...
you'll be happier, those around you will catch it
and maybe you'll not feel so compelled

to fall back on the crutches that once held you
but you can hold them at bay...one smile,
one headshake, one joke at a time
and recover one day at a time.

Fat

How could I love my body?

How could I have accepted
an addiction to sugar,
a compulsion to overeat,
a disease that could have,
would have killed me?
I can do all this because
without meeting the criteria,
without the desperation,
without realizing helplessness
and an unmanageable life
I'd never have found
recovery.

 

Let Me Pray

Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you must ask to attend to them. ~ Dag Hammarskjold

The words "Let us pray" are more familiar,
more comfortable...at least to me...than "Let me pray."
The prayers that spring forth when I speak to God aloud
come naturally, from the heart and soul. But meditation?
A time to sit down and pray because the clock says to?
I find myself repeating the standards...then will lapse into
a recitation of the members of my family, of my friends,
of those who depend on me, each preceded by "bless."
And what about "Bless me"? That's not so comfortable.
I'll stick in, "your will not mine be done." And gratitudes,
a presenting to God of the obligations on my plate for the day...
but not for results, not for ... Hey, edit this prayer, this poem.
I do, too. Pray for results. They're only ones I expect
would be acceptable to him, but after "your will be done."
Practice is the key to everything. I can analyze it all the time
but to learn how to pray, perhaps the first prayer should be...
"Let me pray."

My Choice

Everything I do is my choice. ~ Vicki W

It's not my fault. I did it, but he made me.
I forgot that was going to happen if I didn't act,
but it was just an accident. You can't blame me,
I'm not king, nobody made me dictator of the world.
Everybody else is doing it. If I don't, I'll be weird.
It was an accident. You can't blame me! 
I had other things I had to get to.
Okay. I don't care what you think.
What you think of me is none of my business.
But it's not your business if I didn't get it done,
leave me alone. I't nobody else's business,
but it is mine. What I do I choose to do.
If it's important enough I'll try my best,
and if I fail, I fail, but I have learned a way not to do it.
Everything I do is my choice. God help me,
it's my choice...even asking your help!

Walk to God

When we walk to God, he runs to us. ~ Brenda Q

Like a child, pulling up to stand,
edging around a stool, holding on,
trying the feet but not with trust.
Forgetting for a moment the need
to hold on, to grasp safety,
a faltering step then two, three,
until we're walking, without confidence
but wanting to see, wanting to learn,
wanting to move. We walk toward the prize
toward the power, the authority,
toward hope and life...
and as we venture forth
the Power rushes to us, granting us life.

Food Is Not My Problem

Food is not my problem. Food is my solution! ~ Brenda Q

For years food was my problem.
If I could just stay on the latest,
the greatest, the sure-thing diet
until I was skinny, the world
would welcome me, celebrate me,
adore me, emulate me, love me...
But the diets didn't last. They worked!
Sure, they worked. They all made sense.
(Well, some of the crazy...insane...ones
not so much. But most of them.)
I lost as long as I kept it up
but never made it to the goal,
made the math fit into the chart,
got the two pounds a week
or walked every day for two miles
or fasted a day of the week...
it worked while I stayed at it
but had this problem with food.
It defeated me.

But then I got to OA and learned
food was not my problem,
food was my solution! The way I coped,
the escape from feeling dumb,
from being ugly (a.k.a fat),
from feeling a failure. Food
as my solution didn't work at all
and when I learned that,
figured out how to cope
with the fear, the resentment, the anger...
then food was not my problem
and any of the diets could become
a food plan that actually worked
when food was not my problem.