Releasing Myself from Captivity

Our thoughts hold our actions hostage. When we’re angry, we lash out at other people, often innocent bystanders. If we’re harboring self-pity, our sullenness punishes others. Resentments cling to us, tainting our relationships. In each case, our behavior reflects what’s on our minds. ~ Casey, Karen. A Life of My Own: Meditations on Hope and Acceptance (Hazelden Meditations Book 1) . Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Is it really true?
Do out thoughts hold
our actions hostage?
If my thoughts are self-pitying,
my anger causes me to lash out
at innocent bystanders…
even dogs just being guilty of being dog-like?
Or someone who shares my life
when they critique me
for bringing cola
when they’d requested tea?
Do I harbor harboring self-pity
and sullenness while resentment simmers
inside me?
I keep reading that my behavior
reflects what’s on my mind,
not what happens around me.
God, I believe it. Please help my unbelief!

Make a Habit of Peace

There is no new twist here, only a new choice. Perhaps the easiest decision is this: affirm “I will act from a peaceful heart all day today.” And then grade yourself. Feel good about every encounter where you remained peaceful. Forgive yourself for every time you failed, affirming your intention to do better the next time. Changing a bad habit isn’t that difficult if we make the new habit a simple one. Try being peaceful. ~ Casey, Karen. Each Day a Renewed Beginning (pp. 174-175). Mango Media. Kindle Edition.

“I will act from a peaceful heart all day today.”
The first challenge is to remember
this resolution before any act of the day.
Mine needs to come before the dogs wake me
or at least before I get up and open the door for them.
Then I need hold it in mind all day long,
before the television nudges my negativity,
before the dogs demand the door allow
ingress and egress when routine sets
another priority. But I need not change
Bear’s scratching the door
or Benji’s ramming it… “only”
my emotional reaction to the communication.
Then there’s another human in the house
fully as capable of pushing my exasperation point.
None of that precludes my determination to the truth
that “I will act from a peaceful heart all day today.”
I will forgive myself for every time I fail,
affirming my intention to do better the next time.
Repeating the intention and effort daily,
Peace will begin to be a habit.
I will try being peaceful long enough
for peace to become a habit!

"Controlling" Others Troubles Us

…it’s our struggle to control the “hims and hers” in our lives that keeps us focused on the other person even when that person isn’t present. The obsession to control gets in the way of our sanity and serenity. We miss living our own lives when we obsessively focus on how the significant people in our lives are living theirs. ~ Casey, Karen. A Life of My Own: Meditations on Hope and Acceptance (Hazelden Meditations Book 1). Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Do you disagree with others in your household
about how things should be done?
Do you fume over what they would say if they were present?
Do you roil about what Mother would tell you
fifty years after you left home?
Do you respond to to your Daddy’s truism
when he’s been gone for decades?
Do you find keeping sanity and serenity
hard to grasp because
you’re in a conversation within your head?
Let’s try today living our own lives
instead of obsessively focusing
on how the significant people
in our lives are living theirs!

How Crazy Is That?

I, Barbara Rollins, taught an adult Sunday school class for years. Sometime in 2005 or 2006 we decided to study Ecclesiastes, so I sat down to read it and wanted to argue. So I did and the partnership we had created to publish books took it on. In reading through the Bible in 2022, I decided to read my reaction to it. I’m sharing with you the Introduction to A Time for Verse – Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes. Eagle Wings Press imprint of Silver Boomer Books. Kindle Edition.

Somewhere along the way, folks developed the habit of dishonesty with God. We speak to him – even of him – in hushed tones, reverently, even when we want to shout at him. Dare we question him? Can God be challenged? Not unless youʼre crazy! Who wants to be crazy?

The practice of forced reverence isnʼt healthy, wise, or honest. Godʼs tough. He can tolerate questioning, like Gideon asking for a physical sign. Twice. And that after the first miraculous proof! God stands up well to argument, as when Abraham convinced him to spare Sodom for the lives of fifty righteous men, then whittled down to forty-five, then forty, thirty, and finally ten. God allows us to negotiate, as when Deborah pleaded for a man to lead the army God called her to raise, and when Moses needed a spokesman in his place – a prophet – and God offered Aaron to address Pharaoh.

The Teacher who wrote Ecclesiastes knew this. He knew God trusts our intellect. Well, maybe he laughs at it rather than trusting it, but he certainly tolerates it. Heck, he made it, why wouldn’t he? The Teacher knew God hears our questions. Maybe he also knew God occasionally answers, as he did to Job, “Thatʼs my business, not yours.” But itʼs okay. Thatʼs how we talk to the people we know. And knowing God liberates oneʼs spirit, soul, and body! Who wants to be crazy?

Maybe nobody. But what a liberating truth the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous uncovered, knowing a fundamental step to a sane life is admitting our insanity, confessing weʼre crazy. And we can share our audacious ideas freely. Meaningless. Dare we judge Godʼs creation? The Teacher did. Everything is meaningless? Well, first letʼs define “meaning.” Perhaps “subject to a reasoned explanation.” How crazy is that? ~ Rollins, Barbara B. A Time for Verse – Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes. Eagle Wings Press imprint of Silver Boomer Books. Kindle Edition.

Excess Baggage

Many of us come to OA carrying the excess baggage of shame and pride. We are ashamed that we’ve been unable to control our eating by ourselves, and yet we’re too proud to admit that we need help with our eating and our lives. In order to recover, we have to let go of shame and pride and actively reach out to others for help. As we practice anonymity, we begin this process of letting go. ~ Overeaters Anonymous. The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition (p. 164). Overeaters Anonymous, Inc. Kindle Edition.

Shame and pride, awful or awesome,
a surprising pairing.
But a pair we’re accustomed to
when we find Recovery!
We cannot stand ourselves
but want you to know
we’re worthy, respectable.
But we need neither.
We need to live as we want to be seen,
to become the people we always wanted to become!

Doomscrolling

Doomscrolling or Doomsurfing is the act of spending an excessive amount of screen time devoted to the absorption of negative news. Increased consumption of predominantly negative news may result in harmful psychophysiological responses in some. ~ en.wikipedia.org

Is doomscrolling not our world today
unless we’ve become paranoid
of the enmity everywhere we turn?
But there is an alternative to gloom and doom!
God is on his throne and has turned our world around
plenty of times in the past!
We need not spend an excessive amount
of screen time devoted to
the absorption of negative news.
We can stop and pray asking God to direct us
to news of His action and love in the world!
God is in charge and can guide our lives
and listening and still have time and energy
to turn us toward His light!

Poverty or Service

“Being poor is not having too little, it is wanting more.” ~ Seneca

How often do you want something,
just think that would be nice
and turn away thinking,
“I don’t want to get my hopes up.”
How often do you long for more?
Do you feel impoverished,
or do you feel called to do…or be…more?
Maybe it’s more true in possessing things
that Seneca was right. But isn’t it possible
God is calling you to be more, to do more?
But answering a call to be more,
to do more, isn’t really wanting more
but being willing to accept the responsibility
of being more, of giving more?
If you’re comfortable where you are
then being willing to accept more
to be more is service, not lust,
willingness, not poverty!
God, don’t let me avoid your call
when it is your call. As Isaiah said,
“Here I am, Lord, send me.”

Once we Take Step Three

Once we compulsive eaters truly take the Third Step, we cannot fail to recover. ~ Overeaters Anonymous. The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition. Overeaters Anonymous, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

A bold statement, this one.
Just “truly take” Step Three
and we’re in? Really? After lifetimes
struggling for Recovery?
“Just” make a decision
to turn our will and our lives
over to the care of God
as we understand Him?
All we must do is decide?
We don’t even have to manage
the transfer? We don’t!
God doesn’t demand perfection,
but he needs an authentic decision…
And from that, the legitimate choice
and trusting God, it really happens!
We have the actual magic to cede control
to He Who Can!

What Do I Believe?

At our core, we do know what we believe. We just have to be daring enough to reveal it to ourselves. ~ Casey, Karen. Each Day a Renewed Beginning (p. 168). Mango Media. Kindle Edition.

What do I believe?
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth;
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body
, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Simple enough. I’ve known how
to recite the Apostles Creed
along with others in a congregation
for seventy years. That says what I believe, right?
Do I believe that? The descended into Hell
included? No. Catholic church?
Well, yes, catholic means worldwide
. What do I believe, deep down inside?
God made me and God don’t make junk.
God is in charge and I’m better served
if I don’t try to take over.
At my core, I do know what I believe.
I just have to be daring enough
to reveal it to myself.

Success Is a System

Success is not a goal to reach or a finish line to cross. It is a system to improve, an endless process to refine. ~ Clear, James. Atomic Habits (p. 252). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

We would have a status called success
to know when we had reached our goal.
But if "Success" has been reached,
how do you reach some higher plane?
Successier? More success? Greater success?
Success is a system to improve,
an endless process to refine.
My heart has no desire to stay
Where doubts arise and fears dismay;
Though some may dwell where those abound,
My prayer, my aim, is higher ground.

Once Upon a Time...

…not so long ago,
the world seemed overwhelming
so I I tried to tame it,
not like the wild people
who bury awareness
in alcohol or drugs
or even promiscuity,
sometimes even by shopping
or gambling…the wild crowd.
Not me! I was a good girl
and followed the rules,
just eating, so innocuous,
everybody does it!
But not to excess like I did
using the semi-comatose state
normal people get only at Thanksgiving
and such. I was a good girl
yet my drug of food
competed in deadliness
with heroin and meth!
Yet, like those addicts,
The most fortunate ones,
I discovered Twelve Steps
that can banish the shame, the guilt,
and restore me to sanity!

It's a Tool I Use

Overeaters Anonymous
recognizes nine tools:
a plan of eating, sponsorship,
meetings, telephone, writing,
literature, action plan,
anonymity and service.
This Recovery Daily Dose
has continued now
for three thousand
seven hundred eighty-eight days,
of using tools.
The tool of writing, yes,
but perhaps more than that
The tool of service.
I offer this up to the public
trusting the people who might need it
will see it at the time it might be
an act of service to them.

Total Surrender

Once we compulsive eaters truly take the Third Step, we cannot fail to recover. ~ Overeaters Anonymous. The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition (p. 24). Overeaters Anonymous, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

The Third Step says we….
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives
over to the care of God as we understood Him.
And “Once we…truly take the Third Step,
we cannot fail to recover.”
That means truly taking Step Three
is to totally surrender. I understand
the Army description of surrender
includes five “S” words:
Silence (they cannot plan an escape)
Search (for weapons, maps, orders, etc.)
Secure (tie up or guard)
Safeguard (from dangers) and
Separate (to facilitate control).
What does it mean to surrender
to God as we understand God?
We don’t argue with God or
rely on somebody else,
we hide nothing from God,
nor do we try to.
God protects us.
And, accepting our surrender
is ready, eager, and pleased
to meet our needs
and to use the talents
with which he blessed us
to benefit us and everyone else
in the world!

At the Garage Sale

What have you got I need?
I see this old book – copyright 1939?
Such arcane language,
“the goose hung high”?
Still, I see myself, my problems
in the dated, sexist text.
This old God? No, I don’t think so.
I tried him for years
with no real connection.
I’ll stick with the one I found
when somebody asked me
to describe my own conception
of God. But these old ideas —
rigorous honesty, keeping clean
my side of the street, seeking
God’s will and power to do it —
certainly still a great value.
And this three-legged stool
marked “physical, emotional,
spiritual” – old, but comfortable,
like home. You know,
Daddy always said, “There’s nothing
new and improved.” I’ll take these.
What? You want to change your mind,
to keep them, use them? Can’t say
I blame you. And I know their value well.
I’ve got them all myself.
They’re too precious to discard
just because they’re tried and true.

Beginning the Challenge November 1st

Eleven women teamed together,
keeping a record for ninety days
competing somewhat, but massively
supporting our each other. Everybody knows
some of the others, nobody knows everyone.
Ideally eating as set down in a plan,
we're deliberately taking the dare
when holidays loom, and food we decline
will abound. At challenge's end
we trust we'll approve our own result
and have ten friends we love and support
without a hint of competition. 

We Don’t Do Autographs Here!

The only requirement for membership
a desire to stop eating compulsively.
But we do always maintain personal anonymity.
We do not have celebrities here,
even for a person who is, outside these rooms.
Leave her alone although you’ve loved her work
for years. You cannot tell the world you’ve met her
nor give a clue to others who might attend
next week’s meeting! We don’t do autographs here!

Whispered in the Sound of Silence

Whispered in the Sound of Silence~ Paul Simon

Living through the pandemic
has left many of us surrounded
by the sounds of silence
for large blocks of time.
Of course noise of the world
is imported into the void
where we can talk back but seldom be heard.
Are we satisfied with the experience?
I think not for you. I know not for me!
Too often we think the only purposes in life
that count are the ones that impact
a multitude of people. How wrong we are.*
Are you content to isolate, to occasionally
meet in a Zoom call, but to spend most time
alone with few others?
But life goes on, Pain hurts.
Grief hurts. Sadness hurts.
None of them feel good.
We’re not condemned to isolation, though.
We may not be near others
but need not detach from people in our lives.
Detaching from the chaos around us
by seeking the silence within
creates healing in us
and in others, too.
Let us reach out to those hurting
and do what we can
to make the sound of silence
not equate to loneliness
but to be the reverberations
of love, of caring, of support,
of underpinning, of buttressing.

*Karen Casey

This Time

Thirteen years thirty days ago
I finally committed to lose weight
and made great progress…
for a while…about five months
until I was betrayed as I saw it
and not allowed by others involved
to file a lawsuit to fix it! What could I do
but eat over it, reversing progress
though sometimes I pulled it together…
until I felt guilty for accepting an honor
though feeling undeserving, so ate over that!
Not a quick learner I read a book,
turned around again, committed
to do the impossible. Who can eat no sugar,
no flour, no sweeteners, no snacks?
And doing the impossible I’m thinner, happier,
saner than ever before,
a year and thirty days later,
one day at a time!

TenTon Telephone

I loathe, detest, abhor the telephone.
A summer job in 1968
required me to, during the summer,
call each of the youth in the congregation.
I assume I managed, but I buried that part
of my memory, remembering only the requirement.
Then thirty-nine years later I joined OA
and one of the nine tools...the telephone!
I call my sponsor Monday morning,
a planned time, but I have never called a member
otherwise, except perhaps to ask a fact question,
when or where. I sponsor but calling me
is not a requirement. I text, use apps,
communicate, but my phone will never
wear out from use.
Maybe the phone will go out of style.
I've never sent a telegraph.
Will phones become antiques

Grateful God Keeps no Scorecard

3 If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you. ~ Psalm 130:3-4 NIV

Making a list and checking it twice…
Is that what we expect?
From the time we understand
the giver of gifts the difference

between God and Santa
we should also set aside
our expectations of
less than a loving, caring parent!
Thank God there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve Him!