Outside the door hangs heavy
and hinges moan. The sill
grasps the ground itself to cleave
the known by mighty act of will,
as gloom cloaks with soot the heart
of each who watches one depart.
But each who’s ventured through
praises light brilliant, bright,
embracing the beckoning new
though to the dark she sets sight.
Yes, tears outside the door will fall,
not for who passed but for us all.
 |
How did you feel when the leprous came,
calling “Unclean!” as the Hebrews required?
Were you repulsed by the old and the lame
reeking with filth and with excreta mired?
Lord, did you hesitate, waffle or pause
before touching the crusted and unseeing eyes?
Did the odor distract from your virtuous cause,
did the man disappear amid lice and the flies?
Probably not. I guess perfected love
overlooks filth, can set foulness aside.
Love in its essence would tower above
bias, see vile folk beatified.
Perfect, I’m not. But you told me to be
and your life is my model, your spirit my goal.
Lord, hear my prayer. Give me grace, set me free
to bypass my hang-ups, to love every soul.
Let me shake any hand when a tender is made,
hold the patient with AIDS in a heartfelt embrace.
Inmates and homeless I’ll greet unafraid,
Passing to others the strength of your grace.
 |
| Image Copyright : Satjawat Boontanataweepol |
A friend’s still a friend when the shit hits the fan.
You can count on my caring when life’s road is rough.
When you’re down here’s my hand, not just once but again
and again till your confidence rebounds enough.
Disappointment aside, what you do is not you.
A friend’s still a friend when the shit hits the fan,
and I’ll back you up when you’re life’s a snafu.
When you’re down here’s my hand, not just once but again.
I’m not saying it’s fine, all the things that you’ve done;
disappointment aside, what you do is not you.
To do well’s a fine end, an objective begun
and I’ll back you up when you’re life’s a snafu.
Don’t give up. Set a goal. The naysayers defy.
I’m not saying it’s fine, all the things that you’ve done,
but look forward, climb upward, there’s hope if you’ll try.
To do well’s a fine end, an objective begun.
Embroiled in boisterous bustle,
goaded towards guilt undeserved,
shackled with stifling shame
I wither,
I rankle,
I wane.
Enfolded in friendship’s fabric,
encased in caressing cocoons,
nurtured by nature’s transcendence
I flourish,
I flower,
I’m freed.
 |
A candle loses nothing by lighting another. ~ James Keller
In recovery we learn we really need
to help each other out. We read in the Big Book,
“Most of us sense that real tolerance
of other people’s shortcomings and viewpoints
and a respect for their opinions
are attitudes which make us more useful to others.
Our very lives, as ex-problem drinkers,
depend upon our constant thought of others
and how we may help meet their needs.”
The culmination of working the Steps
is lighting other people’s candles
which keeps ours burning bright:
“Having had a spiritual awakening
as the result of these Steps,
we tried to carry this message
to compulsive overeaters
and to practice these principles
in all our affairs.”
 |
I’ve done well this Christmas
eating acceptably throughout the month,
How does a full-grown human learn to express exuberance? Perhaps it is not possible to retrieve what was once lost, but this program of recovery comes close. The more I practice being “as a child,” especially when I take steps three and eleven, the more my spirit is seized with an untamed joy demanding expression. ~ Anonymous, Overeaters. For Today (Kindle Locations 3421-3424). Overeaters Anonymous, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
The more I practice being “as a child,”
especially when I take Steps Three and Eleven,
the more my spirit is seized
with an untamed joy demanding expression.
Today is a day of exuberance,
a day of joy, a day of childish joy,
a day of glee. The more you can live
a day of childish joy, today or any other day,
the closer you can come to the two greatest goals…
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
This is the first and greatest commandment.
And the second is like it:
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Live with childlike exuberance
this day and all other days!
Remembering Sam R. Breedlove, June 22, 1915–December 24, 2005, and Alma Ellen Anderson Breedlove, May 2, 1916–December 3, 2006.
We wore out the book titled Fix it, please,
and the phrase wriggled into the family’s speech.
A roller-skate broken or two bunged up knees,
the technique to rid mossy socks of a leach–
it wasn’t a problem. If Mom didn’t know,
the answer was simple, to Daddy we’d go.
From college we’d call or make pilgrimage back
when puzzled by life and befuddled by men.
Then husbands and children with fast-track
careers, that recipe’s lost, can you tell me again?
The years are relentless, the questions become
how to counsel our own as they fly from the nest.
Mother won’t meddle but asked, wise words come,
and Dad can explain and the best answer suggest.
The doctor believes he’s repaired Mother’s heart,
a pacemaker backup when hers doesn’t start.
Now Daddy’s not sure just what pills he’s to take
and the old hurdler’s steps make his daughter’s heart break.
Now where’s the foundation, the bedrock, the hold?
Somebody please fix it! They can’t be this old.
a speck of dust
a grain of sand
one after one
two piled on two
day follows day
and builds into months
years of accretion
crush fossil to dust
a faux pas not mentioned
a truth tinted pink
a falseness foisted by
yesterlie
one after one
two piled on two
day follows day
and builds into months
years of accretion
crush life from life
a fossil forgotten
a crystallized heart
a dormant dread deadly
sarcophagus
spade after spade
two piled on two
pound upon pound
weights crushing constricting
force Teutonic shift
The burden surpasses both cipher
and scope, yet a marble-weight
added induces relief.
Mass matter lies shattered,
the heart wriggles out,
the weight of the ages through truth
flutters free.
Olive drab is basic pain,
endless hikes in drizzling rain.
Blue is Christmas TDY,
raucous joy so I won’t cry.
Red courage stains on desert sands,
youth drained out in cruel lands,
white-knuckled fear, all fossilize
this PFC with gaping eyes.
That’s the gift I give to you,
olive drab, red, white, and blue.
 |
| Image Copyright : Philippe Renaud |
Friendship is warmth in cold,
firm ground in a bog,
peace in the eye of turbulent storm.
Friends make absurd profound,
impenetrable simple, convoluted uncomplicated,
mundane intense, and infuriating comical.
Friends bless me with sustenance,
brace me with encouragement;
relieve me with intercession and gallantry.
Alone I quiver, bend, back down.
With friends I confound, defy, prevail.
To my friends, I long for eloquence and
settle for a heartfelt, “Thank you."
To the universe, I shout, “Thank God for friends!”
It’s more comfortable to sit in a corner
than to sort out a meaningful path,
to stay in stasis at yesterday.
I meant for my life to matter,
I yearn for difference tomorrow
though comfort means to sit around.
How boring – though safe – to sit around,
sucking my thumb, a tot in a corner
hiding from fear of tomorrow,
fear of the forks in the path
but heck, does it really matter
whether I fear the unknown or yesterday?
How soothing is the fiend yesterday?
Resentments dance with shoulds around
oughts and regrets. A trivial matter
lurks there for years, leaping from a corner
into my way, blocking the well-chosen path
to imagined triumphs and honor tomorrow.
What if I fall on my face, humbled tomorrow
as I have been these countless haunting yesterdays?
Does nobility, courage of the chosen path
shine brightly, or does disaster peek at me around another
inevitable blind corner — ubiquitous “theys” say only todays matter.
I could have been a contender. I could matter
in grand schemes of the history of tomorrow.
Does fame – or infamy – lurk around that corner?
When I look at the future as another yesterday
will it seem to have changed for I was around?
Will admiration trace my innovative path?
Like Merlin, God lives backwards, the path
clear from one end as the other, matters’
meanings unmuddled. He turns around
and surveys, satisfied, countless tomorrows
and the coming versions of yesterday
laid out clearly, unblocked by turns and corners.
God’s present, around as I ponder each path
knowing what a corner may hide. It doesn’t matter
I can’t see tomorrow. It’s my God’s yesterday.
esse’s combat boots
stand at attention
Our entire life – consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are. ~ Jean Anouilh
How old were you when you began
to accept yourself as you are
…or as you were then?
Have you accepted yourself,
or do you persist
in fleeing what you expect you are?
Many who have found their way
to the Rooms of Recovery
soon realize they never did in the past.
With the changes that happen as we work the Steps,
we come to accept ourselves
whether or not we like what we see
but as we continue, we evolve to like ourselves
and allow you to like us as we evolve!
“We progress from hurting, to healing, to helping. We awaken to a sense of wholeness we never knew was possible.” ~ Adult Children of Alcoholics Solution
Progress.
From Hurting we come to Recovery.
From hurting we soon move to healing,
of becoming a part of Recovery,
to being in Recovery.
Then we take our proper place in Recovery
by taking our rightful place
by moving from hurting newcomer
to passing on what has been given us,
helping others to find the path
we have walked so they, too, come full circle:
12. Having had a spiritual awakening
as the result of these Steps,
we tried to carry this message
to compulsive overeaters
and to practice these principles
in all our affairs.
The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny. ~ Dr. Albert Ellis, psychologist
A group of us talked this morning,
all of us old enough to be grandmothers.
We talked about sisters rather than mothers,
but that came from current interactions,
our mothers no longer in our lives.Blaming mothers,
sisters, fathers, the media, the climate
and whatever may be changing it, and politicians
and other factors for problems in the world,
especially in our lives might once have been easy,
but time enough has passed to know blaming does no good.
How fulfilling it is to finally accept we each control our own destiny!
 |
Healing the division between the feeling and unfeeling self begins with the willingness to accept our vulnerability and to forgive our self-hate. ~ Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families, ACA WSO Inc. Kindle Edition.
Do you hate yourself?
Many of us in Recovery do, or did!
For those of us in Overeaters Anonymous,
it’s often the cause and/or the result
of our compulsive use of food,
either excesses or deprivation,
and that’s often true
of other addictions as well.
Are you willing now to heal
the division between the feeling
and unfeeling self, beginning
with the willingness to accept
your vulnerability and to forgive your self-hate?
Can you stop the noise in your head chanting,
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me
I think I’ll go eat worms!
Big fat juicy ones
Eensie weensy squeensy ones
See how they wiggle and squirm!
It’s not what should be.
Remember the second greatest commandment,
And a second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
See? the assumption is you love,
not hate, yourself!
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Yes, I know, it’s not just you and me,
God’s here, too. Somehow
he doesn’t bother me as much as you.
That’s weird. I understand.
But still… I want you to like me.
I guess I start at the beginning?
I used to take Bubba’s candy and toy cars.
The kindergarten teacher
caught me scratching tables.
In second grade
I hit a little girl.
What? You want more? Oh. Just different.
The exact nature of our wrongs?
I’m scared all the time. I’m always into me,
not you, not him, not God. I hide my head
in mindless games, an ostrich in the sand,
and hurry to anything that promises oblivion
when, unprepared, I fall face-flat to floor.
Simple things I didn’t do haunt me
so I wreck a friendship when she can’t recall
my wrong, just knows I avoid her. I lie and cheat
to duck the blame, defame a saint to feel
less odious, to blunt the pain. It’s who I am,
the best I’ve managed yet, abjectly miserable.
So there, you see, I thank you for your time
and kindness to me. I know you hate me now.
You what? How could you love me at all,
much less more? Yes, I feel your love. And God’s.
I began to learn that prayer isn’t about transactions between us and God; it’s about our relationship with him. ~ Beth Matheson
I chewed on God’s butt this morning a little bit. ~ DKP
What is your relationship with God?
Do you find yourself talking to God
as you talk to a close friend?
Can you imagine chewing God out?
If you chew someone out,
you tell them off in a very angry way.
Can you imagine telling God off?
Have you wanted to? Did you do it?
Think about your best friend.
Can you imagine telling off your friend?
Have you wanted to? Did you do it?
Is God your friend? Jesus said,
“I no longer call you servants,
because a servant does not know his master’s business.
Instead, I have called you friends,
for everything that I learned from my Father
I have made known to you.”
Would you friend God on social media?
Would you accept such a friend request?
In a crowd or with one or a few
I remain solo, apart, alone.
My best friend is my loneliness
for with myself I don’t have to talk
or remember that name I forget.
I know I’m alive when I ache.
Live enough years with an ache,
you grow numb and feel few
ups or downs. Life is gray. You forget
how to laugh or to cry. Alone
with stranger or spouse, small talk
falters toward loneliness.
I cling to despair and to loneliness,
to the comfort of knowing the ache.
I don’t want to remember to talk
when the words breaking silence are few.
I’m accustomed to feeling alone;
short-lived joy I might never forget.
Never knowing, you need not forget.
It’s safer to falter in loneliness.
It’s not frightful to suffer alone
when long habit has softened the ache.
The times of regret now are few,
and to dream of escape is mere talk
And yet, I’ve begun now to talk.
How unlikely am I to forget?
The rewards of old patterns are few
and the profligate cost is my loneliness.
Can I really survive with the ache
when I perceive myself one alone?
Solitude’s pleasure from being alone
is a fib, just ingenuous talk
when you know what it is by the ache
that you’ll never again just forget.
The comfort once settled in loneliness
perishes. Remnants and shards, just a few.
I can’t regress to a lifetime alone, can’t forget
my thought, my talk of ubiquitous loneliness.
Friendships may ache – but give me a few.
 |
| From Slender Steps to Sanity: Twelve-Step Notes of Hope by OAStepper |
Most people have some extra leisure at Christmas time. This year try the experiment of spending some of that time in definitely seeking the Wonder Child in yourself. ~ Fox, Emmet. Find and Use Your Inner Power (p. 107). New Albany. Kindle Edition.
Did you lose your wonder child?
Did you know you had one?
Wonder Child: “an unusually intelligent
or talented child; prodigy; wunderkind.”
“the magical world of innocence and joy
within ourselves”
What is a wonder child?
From Isaiah 9:
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.
Emmet Fox reads the text metaphorically
and explores how the inner Wonder Child
can be born in all of us.
Through this process
we are able to access a Mystical Power
that can change our lives
beyond recognition.*
Who is the wonder child in you?
Do you have a playful inner child?
Which of these qualities
does your inner child have?
trust, liveliness, innocence,
curiosity, joy, boldness,
clarity, wonder,
lightness, purity,
playfulness, openness?
Take some time
to explore your inner child today!
*Fox, Emmet. The Wonder Child . Johannes Roux Malan. Kindle Edition.
It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen. ~ Muhammad Ali
James Clear says,
* The goal is not to read a book,
the goal is to become a reader.
* The goal is not to run a marathon,
the goal is to become a runner.
* The goal is not to learn an instrument,
the goal is to become a musician.
What are you becoming?
What do you want to be?
If your answer is you want to be thin,
Become a person who eats
like a thin person eats.
If your answer is you want to be
a leader, set off toward a worthy goal.
If your answer is you want respect,
act with integrity.
Establish your goal and become that person,
step by step, day by day, thought by thought,
until you automatically
take the next right step toward your objective.
It’s the repetition of affirmations
that leads to belief.
And once that belief
becomes a deep conviction,
things are happening
as you envisioned them!
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| Image Copyright : yarruta |
Nothing that is happening around me has to negatively affect me. In fact, I can perform a beneficial service for everyone by expressing only love to every person I see or even think about today. ~ Casey, Karen. Daily Meditations for Practicing the Course (Hazelden Meditations) . Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels,
but have not love, I am only a resounding gong
or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy
and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have a faith that can move mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the poor
and surrender my body to the flames,
but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast,
it is not proud. It is not rude,
it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil
but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies,
they will cease; where there are tongues,
they will be stilled; where there is knowledge,
it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
When I was a child, I talked like a child,
I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror;
then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully,
even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love. (I Corinthians 13, NIV)
Even in an Insane time,
I can perform a beneficial service for everyone
by expressing only love
to every person I see or even think about today.
 |
| Image Copyright : Vlad Ispas |
Since true listening involves a setting aside of the self, it also temporarily involves a total acceptance of the others. Sensing this acceptance, the speaker will feel less and less vulnerable, and more and more inclined to open up the inner recesses of his or her mind to the listener. As this happens, speaker and listener begin to appreciate each other more and more, and the dance of love is begun again. ~ R. Scott Peck
The dance of love is begun again!
Is that not a worthy reward
for our setting ourself aside,
totally accepting another?
When we reach the point
of sharing ourselves, our essence,
of appreciating another to their core,
then we have the great privilege
of the depth of communication,
of identifying with ourselves
(the harder accomplishment)
and with the other in dancing
as love begins and flourishes.
 |
| Image Copyright : Valerie Garner |
How much control can you relinquish? Don’t ask God to be your assistant. Don’t seek God as an equal partner. Don’t buy into the “God is my co-pilot” crowd. Make yourself God’s assistant, his employee, his co-pilot. ~ OAStepper. Slender Steps to Sanity – Twelve-Step Notes of Hope (Kindle Locations 439-440). Eagle Wings Press, imprint of Silver Boomer Books. Kindle Edition.
What kind of control did you use
before you found Recovery?
Did you stuff down your anger, your embarrassment,
or your jealousy by indulging in food? in rescuing,
in drinking, drugs, gambling, shopping,
or some other obsession? Do you still?
Once you get to the point you need
the Rooms of Recovery then you’ll need
to surrender not only your old go-to tools,
but the idea you can successfully control anything!
Instead on finding you cannot control anything (“I can’t!”),
and on coming to believe that a Power greater
than yourself could restore you to sanity (“God can!”),
the only solution is to give trying to control anything:
(“I think I’ll let God!”) Then trust enough to do it!
 |
I remind myself that drawing up a timetable can doom me to failure, just as goals of perfection have done. I do not set myself up for this anymore. ~ Anonymous, Overeaters. For Today (Kindle Locations 3243-3245). Overeaters Anonymous, Inc.
I sat at the same desk for two decades
and as I cleaned it out,
I removed from the writing boards
many taped-on plans for getting thin.
Over the years I would chart
the weeks to come and the rate
I planned to lose weight.
Along the way were rewards I'd earn
for all the progress.
I wonder what I would have done
if I had ever deserved the reward
by the time that date arrived!
I have no need for such lists today.
The rewards I receive are the admiration
of people who have not seen me for a while.
Eating one day at a time one meal at a time
the proper foods to garner what I yearned for,
I have learned to focus on the process
and let the outcome come...
rather than focusing on the outcome.
Today I have recovery and a body
in sizes I only dreamed of
sketching success on those writing boards!
Powerless
I’ve tried, really tried,
yet to sooth the savage beast
eludes me. Why? Tell me why!
Others can! So why should
this craving mock me, shame me,
crush my soul? Others stroll
from the beast, a whimpering kitten
in their lives though they’ve indulged
with the rest of us, partied just as hard.
Am I so weak, so deficient?
Where’s my will-power?
I’m sick to death of this addiction,
ready to give up.
You say there’s hope just because
I give up? That I’m sick but it need not be
to death? So tell me. I’m ready to hear you.
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| From Slender Steps to Sanity: Twelve-Step Notes of Hope by OAStepper |
