Joyfully Acccept

Let’s make the decision to joyfully accept all situations—the lines, the traffic jams, the downed computers, and the rest—as opportunities to include God in our lives, in that moment, and then wait for the change in perception that will assuredly come. Our lives change when our perceptions change. This is an absolute that we can count on! ~ Casey, Karen. Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow. Red Wheel Weiser. Kindle Edition.

Can you joyfully accept an ice maker stopping?
A disposal jammed? A lightbulb you can’t find to replace
and when someone takes it out, pronounces it burned out
and you have to get help at the hardware store to match it,
get shocked putting it in, finally get it in and the next day it doesn’t work?
One appliance repairman, two visits because the first didn’t take
as to the ice maker? The second a whole day later?
That was my Sunday through Tuesday and I lived through it.
“Let’s make the decision to joyfully accept all situations…”
Was that really an opportunity to include God in my life,
in that moment, and then wait for the change in perception
that would assuredly come? Maybe. I’ll try to realize that
next time I feel a call to edit life’s events!!!

God Can

God can work with even being not ready. ~ Connie H

What are you being called to do
although you’re worried you’re not Ready?
Did someone ask you to fill a service slot
that feels like too much, beyond your ability?
The request may be from your sponsor
or it may be somebody needs to and nobody will.
All we’re asked to be is to be willing.
We don’t need to have knowledge
or talent. God’s in charge and He can.
Trust Him and hold on for the ride!!

Not my Business

We are not in charge of others! Not their behavior, their thoughts, their dreams, their problems, their successes, or their failures. ~ Casey, Karen. Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow. Red Wheel Weiser. Kindle Edition.

Ten of us on the same road
but at different points on it,
join together to walk hand in hand,
though the hands will never touch.
We care, though, lend a hand when we can,
support, foster, boost, encourage...
We are not in charge of others!
Not their behavior, their thoughts,
their dreams, their problems,
their successes, or their failures.
It's not our business, but we care,
we support, we do what we can!

Image Copyright : Andrii Starunskyi

Fight, and Fight Again!

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. ~ Margaret Thatcher

We walk into the rooms of Recovery
and many of us become inspired instantly.
We may get abstinence that first day,
understanding little of it. We call that
pink cloud Recovery. That’s all well and good,
but easy come, often easy go! Pink clouding,
or pink cloud syndrome,
describes a stage of early addiction recovery
involving feelings of euphoria and elation.
When you’re in this phase,
you feel confident and excited about recovery.
Coming out of this phase
can sometimes have a negative impact
on your recovery.
Pink Cloud Recovery evidences
feelings of euphoria and extreme joy,
a calm or peaceful mind,
confidence you can keep it, and
a tendency to overlook the hard work
necessary to maintain sobriety.
It’s not likely to hold through the hard work
ahead, but it’s not to be disdained!
Understand that life kicks in
with all the problems involved.
But once you’ve felt it, you understand better
the possibilities and the glory waiting for you as you
do the work and claim the reward.
You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.
But oh, how it’s worth it!

When Do You Start?

If you had a thorn in your foot, would you decide not to extract until New Year, or National Pulling Thorns out of Feet Day? If you were 20, would you wait until you were 40 before you extracted that thorn? ~ Allen Carr, The Only Way to Stop Smoking Permanently

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow never comes.
If you want to change your life,
the time to do it is today!!
If your life is unmanageable,
if you’re powerless over food,
over drugs, to control your shop-lifting,
over clutter, over sex, over tobacco,
over shopping, over any substance
or obsession, there’s a Twelve-Step program
that can show you the way out!
Ask. Chances are someone,
the right person at the right time,
will hear you an know the answer
as to who you’re looking for…or should be!

Image Copyright : tarapatta

Growth Is the Opposite of Control

There is struggle in the growth process; pride, ego and misused will stand in the way and must be overcome gradually, with understanding and compassion. Pain is always the teacher, but with each period of growth it becomes less acute. Growth is the opposite of control. ~ Anonymous, Overeaters. For Today (Kindle Location 1956). Overeaters Anonymous, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Pain is always the teacher,
but with each period of growth
it becomes less acute.Growing up is not easy,
no matter when it happens!
We think of growing up
as being completed in large part
in the first eighteen years.
As we move on from then
we feel the need to be in control…
but not just a need, an expectation!
Pain especially in adult years
remains the teacher, but it hurts!
I believed if I didn’t grow  up
by my fortieth birthday, I wouldn’t!
So I took control, made bold steps
but continued to live in fear
of being a fake grownup!
I clung to control, tried to acquire more
but fifteen years later
secretly sought counseling
to explain what was wrong with me.
It was she who taught me
pain is always the teacher,
but with each period of growth
it becomes less acute.
And in Recovery I learned finally
surrender, admitting powerlessness
is the opposite of control!
And surrender is how I choose to live!

Image Copyright : Gennady Kireev

Claim God

Claim that God works in you, and that when He works He always succeeds; that He knows the best way and is inspiring you to take it; that He meets no resistance for He works with joy; and that you and your life are part of that. ~ Fox, Emmet. Find and Use Your Inner Power (p. 73). New Albany. Kindle Edition.

What happens when you
make a decision to turn
your will and your life over
to the care of God
as you understood God?
Do you believe it’s reciprocal?
Can you state that God works in you,
and that when He works
He always succeeds?
Why do you believe that
and if you don’t, why not?

EMMET FOX

Kind of Like Back to the Future

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Nineteen fifty-six. A momentous year,
the year we left where I'd lived all my life —
well, the first nine years of it, so all then —
and I moved to a town where everyone
knew everybody...and most were kin.
I have a self-diagnosed genetic ineptitude
for remembering names. We moved
as soon as school was out. Three months
stretched long, but fall loomed fearsome.
But it's Quanah I call home, not Lubbock
though I lived about as long in each.
How could I have known?
I chose McMurry as a small Methodist school
not too far and with a marching band.
Prof Bynum was tired of marching...
he'd started such in Texas high schools
and my only C's on the transcript were Band.
I went to Peggy to be hypnotized
but she did mind suggestions,
not the trance I wanted.
But she knew what was wrong with me
and patiently fixed it, molded me,
got me to the rooms of recovery.
We don't have to have life all planned out
but when we look back we see the tapestry
woven out on the road we traveled,
beauty stretches out in the form of a life.

Wearisome

All things are full of weariness; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. ~ Ecclesiastes 1:8 (American Standard Version)

Yeah, yeah. I know. The trees are budding,
birds fly in formation, sunsets paint the sky.
A child’s smile, a bridegroom’s tear — “things” should touch my heart.
Instead I see the filthy, the tedious, the reprehensible.
Nobody can spell.
Heck, they can’t even string a sentence together.
I can’t count on anybody to do anything right, to follow through, to see to detail.
And I don’t have time.
All things are wearisome. Life is wearisome.

God, shatter my shell so the world can flood my soul.
I want to feel, even if it’s pain. I want to live.
I need to live in your love.

Personal

Although I had studied Christian theology in school, I had kept it at an intellectual distance. Now I felt the threat of a more personal significance. ~ Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love. Harper-Collins W-Books

I was raised in the church — almost literally!
At one point Daddy was song leader
and Sunday School Superintendent,
Mother was Children’s Superintendent,
my older sister president of the high school youth
while I was of junior high. I got a degree
in Christian education, had been church staff
for four congregations, wrote curriculum
for two denominations, had taught Sunday school
for decades. Amid my parents’ possessions
I had  brought home to distribute,
I showed my husband a framed key to the church
where we married, long since burned to the ground.
His response? “I always knew you had the key!”
But like Marianne Williamson, somehow I managed
to have kept theology at an intellectual distance.
Nearly sixty, I found Twelve-Step Recovery
and there I found a Higher Power
Who evidence a more personal significance in my life.
Perhaps the greatest gift of the Steps is the shorthand
for Steps One, Two and Three, “I can’t. God can.
I think I’ll let him!”

Image Copyright:  wklzzz

Can You Learn yo Like Yourself?

If we could learn to like ourselves, even a little, maybe our cruelties and angers might melt away. ~ John Steinbeck

Who is the recipient (the subject)
of our cruelties and angers?
Would you not assume
the usual, more probable, answer
to be those other than yourself?
How  does liking ourselves change
how we treat others?Jesus said to love others
as you love yourself.
So in everything, do to others
what you would have them do to you,
for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.*If you respect yourself, admire your decisions,
like yourself, even a bit, as Jesus suggested.
is it not true, you act toward others

as Jesus said: like the Old Testament
directed, “Let not steadfast love and faithfulness
forsake you; bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.**

*Matthew 7:12 (NIV)
**Proverbs 3:3

Proper Service

…proper service is “Doing the right thing for the right reason.” When Good will supports and motivates both the individual and the Fellowship, we are fully whole and wholly free. ~ Narcotics Anonymous

Neat definition! Proper service
is “Doing the right thing for the right reason.”
So what is not proper service?
Trying to impress people.
to get them to consider you special?
Offering to be a sponsor to raise your hand
and be recognized as a leader, an insider?
Trying to win newcomers to your “side”
so a matter to be  decided at group conscience
will go as you wish?
“Doing the right thing for the right reason”
is putting the good of the group
in the elevated position in which it belongs.

An Interesting Facebook Post

#gratitude.  I’m grateful for being able to practice self-control, having found someone who excites me and mango. Undisclosed

While I could well play editor,
it would kill the effect! I don’t
often enough do gratitude lists.
Today’s would include
a recitation of family members,
alive or present no longer,
(where I habitually start)
but I would amend by adding
the Higher Power I seek
to bless each one then move to
my constant monitor,
a Fitbit on my wrist reporting before 10:30
I’ve walked a 1.74 miles before heat near 100
makes that intolerable.
I’m grateful for being able to practice self-control,
for many special people who care for me
and for mangos which without the post
would not be in my top 500 gratitudes.

CC BY-SA 3.0

Embrace Believing

In order to recover, I had to let go of my thinking and embrace believing. ~ Overeaters Anonymous, Voices of Recovery,  August 31

How do you let go of your thinking?
When you’re not in charge
and you rely on the reasoning, the guidance
of the one(s) who are, be it a parent, a boss,
the boss’s boss, the government,
the chain on command.
So long as you’re in the chain of command
but have no individual control,
you are letting go of your thinking.
“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.”*Let go of your thinking,
and embrace believing!

Image Copyright : Vachirapa Petchdee

Third Step Prayer, Alcoholics Anonymous

Don't Be Afraid

There is nothing in all the universe for me to fear, for greater is He that is within me than he that is in the world. ~ H. Emilie Cady

The Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous,declares on Page 55, “deep down
in every man, woman, and child,
is the fundamental idea of God.”
Therefore it’s a basic truth,
“There is nothing in all the universe
for me to fear, for greater
is He that is within me
than he that is in the world.”
God is everywhere and fear of God
makes no sense.  But we have to seek God,
because we grew up believing
we’re on our own.
But it’s a truth we can  prove,
God’s right here always.
Who or what could possibly scare us?
Thanks, God for the company,
the guidance, the hope!

A Problem Made Manageable

Just as gravity keeps us grounded and connected to the earth, our fellowship keeps us bound to sobriety. The fellowship available to us in our Twelve Step program keeps us in reality. A problem pondered in isolation seems immense; the same problem shared by those who truly understand is manageable. ~ Anonymous. Body, Mind, and Spirit: Daily Meditations (Hazelden Meditations) . Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

There’s a great reason folks in recovery
often refer to others in the community
as our family of choice! They often
understand us better than our other family!
Our problems are theirs,  our defects shared,
we share personal histories more like theirs
than are our blood and bones kin.
With Recovery people, we’re understood.
Isolation is a thing of the past.
Problem shared by those
who truly understand are manageable!

Why We Have Problems

The very fact that man can become conscious of a problem at all is a proof that he can find a solution. We are here on the earth to solve these very problems, because in solving them we develop our own spiritual faculties. Every difficulty that comes into your life, every problem that presents itself to you, means that here is a point at which you are to learn something. ~ Fox, Emmet. Find and Use Your Inner Power (p. 66). New Albany. Kindle Edition.

Emmet Fox preached in New York City
in the 1930’s and strongly influenced
the fledgling Alcoholics Anonymous.
Do you accept the premise.
“Every difficulty that comes into your life,
every problem that presents itself to you,
means that here is a point
at which you are to learn something.”?
Do you be find it true that becoming conscious
of a problem is soon followed
by your solving it? Do you learn
usually by solving a problem?

Self-Assessment

Honesty is telling the truth to ourselves and others. Integrity is living that truth. ~ Kenneth H. Blanchard

Do you tell yourself the truth?
How honest are you in answering
when you’re asked, “How  are you, really?”
Does it make a difference whether
anybody else will know your answer?
Do you know the truth?
Do you automatically hedge your answer?
Do you lie all the time, despite the fact
it costs us considerably more mental effort
to lie than to tell the truth?
President Abraham Lincoln once said,
“No man has a good enough memory
to be a successful liar.”
Do you have enough integrity
to always tell the truth?
Do you want that answer to change?
What is your most honest next choice?

A Quiet Haven

In moments of madness, meditation has helped me find moments of serenity — and I would like to think that it would help provide young people a quiet haven in a not-so-quiet world. Sir McCartney in 2009

Not just young people but all of us in 2020
live in a not-so-quiet world! Do you have mindfulness
to find moments of serenity?
What is mindfulness?
It’s a way of exercising for some,
a form of meditation for others:
a mental state achieved by focusing
one’s awareness on the present moment,
while calmly acknowledging
and accepting one’s feelings,
thoughts, and bodily sensations,
used as a therapeutic technique.Buddhist monks have used mindfulness exercises
as forms of meditation
for more than 2,600 years,
seeing them as one of the paths
to enlightenment.
But in the Mindfulness-Based
Stress Reduction program,
mindfulness is stripped of religious undertones.
It’s worth a try and I  try
every day but don’t always get there.I wish each of you
quiet haven in a not-so-quiet world!

That Matters

When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe manʼs labor on earth – his eyes not seeing sleep day or night – then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it. ~ Ecclesiastes 8:16-17 NIV

We cannot really comprehend it
but that doesn’t stop our trying,
does it?
So the Bible supports
punishment as deterrence?
Slap the other guy’s hand
and I’ll behave.
Actual innocence bugged The Teacher
long before DNA testing.
Eat, drink, be glad,
even if innocent and imprisoned.
Be glad, and have joy,
no matter what.
What doesn’t matter.
Where’s unimportant.

You and me, God.
Together. In Sync.
That matters.

The Weird Truth about Fourth Steps

You think you hold against your brother what he has done to you. But what you really blame him for is what you did to him. It is not his past but yours you hold against him. And you lack faith in him because of what you were. Yet you are as innocent of what you were as he is. What never was is causeless, and is not there to interfere with truth. ~ Schucman, Dr. Helen. A Course in Miracles. Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition.

The Fourth Step, “Made a searching
and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”
often finds us starting not with wrongs we’ve done
but as Joe McQ wrote, “Number one for a selfish,
self-centered person is resentments.
Resentments effectively block us from God.
At the time we have resentments,
these thoughts dominate our minds,
causing us to turn our lives over
to the people and things we resent.
If people and things we resent
are directing our lives,
we can’t carry out the decision
that we just made in Step 3.”*
We don’t think we resent based on our deeds
but we find it true! Chances are
we started the ball rolling
but remember only the response!

Image copyright: ??????? ???????

*McQ, Joe. The Steps We Took (p. 52). August House. Kindle Edition.

Be Nice to Yourself!

July 9, 2020Eagle Wings Press

We are working a recovery program now and things are getting better. We can lighten up. Mentally beating ourselves up creates a spiral of self-criticism and self-blame, and we don’t deserve it. We can learn to recognize self-criticism, and replace it with self-love. We can replace pessimism with an optimistic, new appreciation for our unique selves. We find we do deserve it. ~ Anonymous. Body, Mind, and Spirit: Daily Meditations (Hazelden Meditations) . Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

How would you treat someone who kept
treating someone of worth the way you treat yourself?
We can learn to recognize self-criticism,
and replace it with self-love.
We can replace pessimism with an optimistic,
new appreciation for our unique selves.
We find we do deserve it.
But you must learn to love yourself.
Understand how the people around you
resent the way you treat yourself
because they like you and disdain
your treating yourself like you do!

The Dog Loves Me

There is something else meaningless that occurs
on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked
deserve, and wicked men who get what the
righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.
So I commend the enjoyment of life, because
nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat
and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him
in his work all the days of the life God has given him
under the sun. ~ Ecclesiastes 8.14-15 (NIV)

What, me worry?
Sometimes it feels like
simple people have it easy,
they don’t understand
the nuances. Or the themes.
They just live lives, not of quiet desperation,
but of simple joy.
The adoration of a dog,
warmth of the sun,
gentle soaking rain.
Would that I didn’t understand
what’s happening some days.
Yet the dog loves me, the sun’s warm,
rains still fall.
Intellect doesn’t stop the good stuff.
It just diverts my attention.

God, thanks for small joys.
Help me to enjoy the joy

A Time foe Verse: Poetiv Ponderings on Ecclesiastes by Barbara B. Rollins

Labels for God

Physical human has found many labels that they use, depending on how they feel in the moment, to try to describe their interaction with Nonphysical. We are Source Energy. We are Collective Consciousness – meaning a stream. We are a consensus of many (what you might call) Nonphysical voices. We are that which some have called angel. We are that which some have called God. We are that which some have called Inner Being. But most importantly (and we’ll use some of our favorite words again) we are focalized Consciousness, specifically responding to the vibration that you manage in your asking. ~ Abraham-Hicks.com

We choose our God in Recovery,
each as we understand God to be,
sometimes writing a job description
of the God of our understanding.
Every description comfortable to us
is the right one for us…today!
But as our understanding evolves,
so does the God of our understanding!
God loves us and accepts us including
our changing understanding!

A Time for Faith

This is the time for faith. You let this goal be set for you. That was an act of faith. Do not abandon faith, now that the rewards of faith are being introduced. ~ Schucman, Dr. Helen. A Course in Miracles. Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition.

This is the time for faith!Did I let this goal be set for me?
I expect I did. Each day I read from
fifteen books, most of them on
Twelve-Step Recovery. The others
are the work of people I would emulate,
one I know personally, the others
people I respect for their faith and wisdom…
I certainly chose to grow in faith
and it’s a goal for me.
So I’m being addressed when it says,
“Do not abandon faith,
now that the rewards of faith
are being introduced.”
My guess is, you are, too!
May God continue
to bless each of us!

Image Copyright : wetnose

Always Forward!

In the military I always used to use the phrase “Always Forward.” ~ Michael Flynn

Do you try to move forward
or waste time on regrets
or second-guessing?
Do you agree with a goal
of leaving the past behind?
What are the advantages?
Are there disadvantages?
Are regrets a waste of time?
Is that how you live your life?
Is a decision to always move forward
a choice not to live in the present?

Image Copyright : lightwise[/caption]

Fear of People

Fear of people is usually a fear of rejection or disapproval, often brought about by our own sense of unworthiness. Feeling we are without value, we may settle for less than we are entitled to or less than we could have. ~ Anonymous. Body, Mind, and Spirit: Daily Meditations (Hazelden Meditations) . Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

The ubiquitous “they”
which I well know includes me
speak of coming to Recovery
alone on a ladder rung
with the rest of the world
on levels above or below ours.
If we feel undeserving, “less than”
most are above us but if our fear
leads us to arrogance, feeling superior,
but inherently lonely.
But coming to these Rooms
we learn how like the others we are
and the fear abates leaving us amid
our new family of choice with close
lifelong friends we’d never have known
but for these Twelve marvelous Steps!

Image Copyright : Kheng Ho Toh

It Becomes Necessary

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary … to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. ~ Declaration of Independence

Two hundred forty-four years.
It becomes necessary again to pick out
the issues we share through the years.
All men are created equal,
endowed by their Creator
unalienable Rights,
including Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.
We, therefore, appealing to
the Supreme Judge of the world
for the rectitude of our intentions,
do, in the Name, and by Authority
of these good People,
solemnly publish and declare,
And for the support of this Declaration,
with a firm reliance
on the protection of divine Providence,
we mutually pledge to each other
our Lives, our Fortunes
and our sacred Honor.
May we have the courage to hold on to
what our forefathers bequeathed to us.
And what God has joined together
let no person or people tear apart.
Amen. So be it!

Don't Give Me Justice!

When the sentence for a crime is not quickly
carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with
schemes to do wrong. Although a wicked man
commits a hundred crimes and still lives a long time,
I know that it will go better with God-fearing men,
who are reverent before God. Yet because the
wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them,
and their days will not lengthen like a shadow. Ecclesiastes8:11-13 NIV

It’s not FAIR!
Do you hear me? It’s not FAIR!
A defendant before the bench with five cases
pleads to one or two with dismissals
for the rest. What?
Commit one and get two free?
A bargain!
One judge gives twenty years,
another, ten probated for the
same
crime.
It’s not fair.
Me? I deserve three days
in an electric
chair.
It’s not fair any of us get lenience.
I get relief from fear,
freedom from guilt,
joie de vivre.Unrepentents feel that three days
every day.

Grace. Such a great gift, God.
I’m so glad you don’t give me justice.

A Time for Verse: Poetic Ponderings
on Ecclesiastes by Barbara B. Rollins

Being the Tortoise Is Fine

If recovery is to be likened to a race at all, it most certainly is about the plodding, patient, and humble runner who clearly knows that what is called for is to put one foot in front of the other and then do it again. ~ Larsen, Earnie. Days of Healing, Days of Joy: Daily Meditations for Adult Children (Hazelden Meditations) . Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

The race is not always to the swift.
Do you find yourself competing
against others in Recovery?
What pulls you toward the goal?
How often do you compare your Recovery
to others you know? Do you gloat
and/or compare yourself to others?
Do you believe you understand
Recovery better than others you know?
Is anyone else’s Recovery your business?
Does that answer depend on whether or not
you are their sponsor?
Are you giving your best
to the race?

Image  Copyright : Joanne Eastope

You Are Whole

You don’t need another person, place or thing to make you whole. God already did that. Your job is to know it. ~ Maya Angelou

Are you whole? Are you defective?
You probably know the expected answers,
but do you believe them?
Why do we choose to reject them?
Even if we truly desire to affirm our value,
how do we reach the point
of truly accepting these facts?
There is a device in Recovery that works here.
You get there by acting as though they’re true.
Give it a go. Say aloud,
“I don’t need another person,
place or thing to make me whole.
God already did that. My job is to know it.”
If I cannot freely know it, I can say it,
chant it aloud or silently, and
make anyone who hears you
believe you mean it!