Your Window to the World

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world. ~ George Bernard Shaw

It’s always my fault…
at least it’s always my responsibility.
I can ask for serenity to accept
what I can’t change,
to change what I can change,
and for wisdom to know the difference…
but that wisdom tells me
the ONLY thing I can change is me!
So I better keep myself clean and bright,
for I am the window through which
I must see the world!

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Know How to Love

oAs soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.  ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Do you you trust yourself?
Who are you. really?
Do you conform your actions,
your thoughts, your values
to those originally someone else’s?
Your parent’s, even when you’ve
seemingly been independent
for decades? Or your spouse,
your social group, the preacher?
Dig past ways you bury yourself,
your needs, wants, and desires.
Begin to listen to yourself
and begin to trust yourself.
Once you can trust yourself,
you can start to live your own life,
for your own reasons.
But trust yourself also to
have a relationship with God
as you understand God,
and you can reach beyond fears
that once claimed you
and find you really do
know how to live.

                Image copyright : leekris

About Step Eleven

As a result of the actions of Steps 4-10, we removed the things that were blocking us from God. Now we can carry out the decision we made in Step 3 of turning our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Through prayer and meditation, we can receive God’s will for us and the power to carry it out. ~ McQ, Joe. The Steps We Took (p. 122). August House. Kindle Edition.

Joe McQ explains the connection
between the Third and Eleventh steps:
“We could say that the Steps
have two crucial points:
the turning over of our will
in Step 3 and the receiving of God’s will
in Step 11.” Steps Four through Ten
teach us how to go about receiving God’s Will.
It’s an explanation of the interrelations
of the Steps that rings true.
God, teach me the truth of the commitment
to have Sought through prayer
and meditation to improve
our conscious contact with God
as we understood Him,
praying only for knowledge
of His will for us
and the power to carry that out.

Friendship

Our understanding of friendship has changed since being introduced to the Twelve Steps. How we act as friends has changed too. Now we know that friends don’t judge, they don’t try to control, they accept how other people are, and they never betray a confidence. They listen, they love, and they offer hope. And they don’t run away when they don’t like what they hear. What we have learned influences our old friendships too, and everybody benefits. ~ Casey, Karen. Peace a Day at a Time: 365 Meditations for Wisdom and Serenity. Red Wheel Weiser. Kindle Edition.

When I was ruled by my compulsion,
by my addiction, by my eating,
I would have told you there were people
who thought I was their friend,
but that I had no friends.
That has changed now that I am in Recovery,
now that I have learned who I am,
I’ve learned I’m neither better (higher)
nor worse (below) my fellows,
that there’s no reason to judge
either them or myself.
I’ve learned to listen, to love, and to offer
and receive hope. I’ve found my family of choice
and I choose to recognize even those
who have not chosen Recovery
and the joys of a Twelve-Step program
as my people as well.
Thank you for being my friend!

Image Copyright : rawpixel

THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD

…living in a world characterized by destructive fears as never before in history, we see great areas of faith, and tremendous aspirations toward justice and brotherhood. Yet no prophet can presume to say whether the world outcome will be blazing destruction or the beginning, under God’s intention, of the brightest era yet known to mankind.
In microcosm, we [in A.A.] have experienced this identical state of terrifying uncertainty, each in his own life. In no sense pridefully, we can say that we do not fear the world outcome, whichever course it may take. This is because we have been enabled to deeply feel and say, “We shall fear no evil—Thy will, not ours, be done.” ~ AA World Services Inc. As Bill Sees It. A.A. World Services, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

The Big Book, the development of setting up
Recovery happened in the 1930’s.
From the Stock Market crash in the early years,
the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl through
the rise to power of the Axis nations
made a frightening time in history.
But each of us could describe contemporary issues
to rival them. Would you say we’re experiencing
an equivalent state of terrifying uncertainty today?
Can we say with Bill W, we “each in his own life.
In no sense pridefully, we can say that we do not fear
the world outcome, whichever course it may take.
[that] this is because we have been enabled
to deeply feel and say, “We shall fear no evil
—Thy will, not ours, be done.”?

Self Will Cannot Overcome Self Will

We do well to recall that there are only two wills on earth: God’s will and self-will, and self-will can only be overcome by God’s will. Self-will cannot overcome self-will. That is our greatest trouble: we are trying to make ourselves better. We can’t do it. ~ McQ, Joe. The Steps We Took (p. 43). August House. Kindle Edition.

Pulling yourself up by bootstraps wont cut it.
Self-will cannot overcome self-will.
That is our greatest trouble:
we are trying to make ourselves better.
We can’t do it.
We made a decision to turn our lives and our wills
over to a Power greater than we are.
When we finally and completely get that right
our lives take wings and really are
BEYOND OUR WILDEST DREAMS!

God and Me

Do you bargain with God? Do you complain to God more than you express gratitude? Do you tend to pray for specific things rather than pray in appreciation? ~ Myss, Caroline. Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing (p. 283). Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony. Kindle Edition.

Praying in appreciation?
Never thought of it before…
certainly not in those terms!
But it certainly makes sense.
Gratitude for what we receive
is logical, expected, whether
addressed to God or to a person.
But how often do we set down a to-do list,
coming back to our expectations…
either to remind God of omitted items
remaining, “needing” to be ticked off.
God, teach me to pray,
remembering always
Who of the two of us can best understand
the situation!

Putting Suffering to Good Use

There are always ways to put suffering to good use. Suffering is never wasted, but there is a loss. There’s a loss of what we could have been, could have accomplished, could have experienced, could have seen, if we hadn’t been enmeshed with the food. You know health-wise there is a loss, just in terms of living life with excess weight, there’s a loss, so depending what all that means to you and what your relationship with food has cost you. There’s going to be more or less grieving involved in that and I just want to give you permission to do that work, to keep doing it. If it keeps coming up for you then it means that you need to keep going there, journal about it, get coaching about it, get support about it through a buddy…. Keep doing the work…. You keep working through it on deeper and deeper levels…. It’s worth doing the work. ~ Susan Pierce Thompson

Has it ever occurred to you to “put suffering to good use?”
Isn’t that what we do when we tell our stories,
what it was like, what happened, what it’s like now?
We think of that usually as helping others, not ourselves,
yet it’s a truism of recovery that we often speak as much
to ourselves as to others both in the passage we randomly read
in a meeting and what we say in sponsoring, or in sharing.
We need to understand the benefit of working through
regrets we may have, experiences of awareness
we’ll never be “normal” eaters, that we have the right
to grieve the “loss” though it helps mightily to
simultaneously appreciate what we’ve gained!
Let’s learn to put suffering to good use as well
as counting our blessings.
Is your journal your best friend?

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Leave a Trail

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

What awaits away from the well-worn path?
Is there something you were meant to see?
Something you might discover, an idea, an understanding
you were meant to fund and share with the world?
As you walk through life with your God,
be ready to go new places and blaze new trails.

Eating Your Words

Why not try a diet of the right words—for you are literally eating your words. That is the value of the affirmation. You are deliberately building up a constructive idea in your consciousness. Your consciousness may be crammed and jammed with destructive ideas, but continually making a statement of Truth, will dissolve these negative thought-forms. ~ Scovel-Shinn, Florence. The Power of the Spoken Word. Start Publishing LLC. Kindle Edition.

Did you ever consider
that eating your words
might be desirable?
It’s good when you
you want dumb words
you’ve said to dissolve,
evaporate…
But what about healthy words?
Words like faith, love, honor, truth?
Do we internalize…become…
the words we ingest?
Can it be true that
continually making
a statement of Truth,
will dissolve
the negative thought-forms?
I’m willing to eat words
to become a loving honest person.

Take Captive Every Thought

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. ~ 2 Corinthians 10:5 New International Version (NIV)

Take captive every thought
to make it obedient to Christ,
to God as you understand God…
How do you take captive your thoughts?
WHY do you take captive your thoughts?
Because you’re in charge, not your thoughts.
If the thoughts are in charge you’re carried away,
enmeshed in doubt and fear, frozen,
unable to function. But if you capture the thoughts,
make them obedient to your Higher Power,
if you surrender them along with the fear and doubt,
all of  you, emotions included, are in the loving hands
of the God of your understanding.

Sacred Awe

May Sacred Awe come down upon me. May it come down upon you. May we spend the rest of our days living in truth, beauty, and wonder. ~ Faith B.

The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me, your love, O Lord, endures forever-do not abandon the works of your hands. ~ Psalm 138:8

Sacred: is ideal and transcends everyday existence,
it is extra-ordinary, potentially dangerous,
awe-inspiring, fear inducing. (David Émile Durkheim)
Awe: a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.
Sacred Awe: The highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge,
or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory,
but something even greater,
more heroic and more despairing:
Sacred Awe! (Nikos Kazantzakis)
Interesting description…
The highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge,
or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory,
but something even greater,
more heroic and more despairing!
More heroic AND more despairing?
I prefer the rest of our days
living in truth, beauty, and wonder.
Do we want to be devoid of hope?
Maybe it’s clearer with a different
quote from Kazantzakis:
“The canary is like man’s soul,”
he whispered finally.
“It sees bars round it,
but instead if despairing, it sings.
It sings, and wait and see, Brother Leo:
one day its song shall break the bars.”
Let us have sacred awe
sufficient to break the bars!

Image copyright : Bruce Rolff

I'm an Errant Toddler

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. ~ Hebrews 10:1-4 (NIV)

It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism.  ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 85

Wake praying,
turning life
and the living it over to God,
Move through the day
surrendering again, then again.
Yesterday’s piety
counts for nothing,
commitments coming tomorrow,
next year,
fifty years out
count for nothing.
Today matters,
just this day,
just this surrender,
just today’s willingness
and peace.

God, I’m an errant toddler
straying from safety,
forgetting the peace
of compliance,
of surrender.
Show me.

Rollins, Barbara. A Cloud of Witnesses -
Two Big Books and Us .
Eagle Wings Press
imprint of Silver Boomer Books.
Kindle Edition.

A Day that Lives inInfamy

Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese planes, in a surprise attack which prompted President Franklin Roosevelt to declare in a speech the following day that December 7th would be “a date which will live in infamy.”

More than seven thousand US citizens
were born December 7, 1941.
About half that many were killed
or wounded at Pearl Harbor that day.
My grandfather was born Fifty-three years earlier.
His son served in the Army, beginning
as a Second Lieutenant, ending as  a Lieutenant Colonel
while his daughter struggled to say Grandpop,
setting the precedent for seven younger granddaughters
to shorten the sobriquet to “Pop.”
No matter how awful the events of any day…
no person, or consequence, or connotation
can curse a day and erase the good,
nor quell the evil that has colored a day.

A Quiet, Expectant Mind

Inherent in every problem or challenge is its solution. Our greatest lesson in life may be to keep it simple, to know that no problem stands in our way because no solution eludes a quiet, expectant mind. ~ Casey, Karen. Peace a Day at a Time: 365 Meditations for Wisdom and Serenity. Red Wheel Weiser. Kindle Edition.

A solution built in to every problem,
each challenge…
All we need do is keep it simple,
to expect the solution to come…
to know all we need do
is to take the time to quiet our mind,
to know we don’t need analytics
or even to know that means
the systematic computational analysis
of data or statistics.
We need no genius intellect,
for God speaks on our own level.
and no solution eludes us when we come.
ready for guidance with a quiet, expectant mind.

Afraid of Being Noticed

Feeling apart from the action and always looking on; wanting attention, and yet afraid of being noticed; no doubt these are familiar memories to most of us. ~ Casey, Karen. Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women. Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

This rings true for me. How about you?
Everybody knows everyone else
and I’m outside looking in.
I want to participate but I’ve not been invited…
why can’t I just invite myself?
Other people do. Why doesn’t anyone invite me?
Don’t look at me, just leave me alone…
It’s like a poem about horses I wrote years ago…
Apart.
Alone.
New pony in the paddock.
Bannockburn grazes, gazes,
gauges access to the trough….
Gaelic ground shudders, shivers, settles
with winded horses gathered at the trough.
Bannockburn grazes, a part.

image Copyright : Jan Mika

A Part of Nature

When I surrendered my compulsion to God, I found the absolute rhythm and followed it with absolute trust. It is as close as a human being can come to being a part of nature. ~ Anonymous, Overeaters. For Today (Kindle Locations 3128-3130). Overeaters Anonymous, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Have you felt the magic?
The magic of it all shifting to great?
The absolute rhythm followed
with absolute trust?
Have you suddenly seen
and suddenly fit into the pattern,
melding with  the world, with nature,
realizing God is not in the universe,
the universe is in God,
that you are in God as well,
a part of the mystery,
a mystery yourself,
as close as a human being can come
to being a part of nature?
God is Good,
you are God’s,
and the universe
is in sync with you,
and you with it?
Blessed are We
to be God’s people!

Image Copyright : Nicola Zalewski

Instructions for Living

[Peace Pilgrim’s] instructions to others were, in keeping with the nature of truth, ever so simple: “I don’t eat junk food, and I don’t think junk thoughts.” Translation: Honor the body, honor the mind, honor the spirit. ~ Myss, Caroline. Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing (p. 255). Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony. Kindle Edition.

I love the simplicity of this —
“I don’t eat junk food,
and I don’t think junk thoughts.”
Translation: Honor the body,
honor the mind,
honor the spirit.
Her simple wisdom also proclaimed,
“One little person,
giving all of her time to peace,
makes news.
Many people,
giving some of their time,
can make history.”
Let us honor her truth in these ways:
Honor the body,
honor the mind,
honor the spirit.

Crisis?

When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters—one represents danger and the other represents opportunity. ~ John F. Kennedy

Danger juxtaposed with opportunity,
in fact that does describe a crisis…
as well as giving us an idea why
a wise and caring God would sanction crises.
Danger is/should be character developing,
and when apposed to danger
through the wisdom of that judicious deity
opportunity results rather than chaos.

Image Copyright : alphaspirit

The Kindness of Others

At times like these, it’s good to remember the tiny acts of kindness others have done for us and how much they meant. That’s our indication that someone else mattered in our lives. We have offered just such help many times too and the circle is completed. ~ Casey, Karen. Keepers of The Wisdom Daily Meditations: Reflections From Lives Well Lived. Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

I was new in town, nine years old, in a small town
where everybody knew everybody.
I’d made one buddy and she and I…
to my utter amazement went all over town.
One day for some reason, having walked
to the two street by four blocks
that made up downtown,
we went into the bus station
for some long-forgotten reason.
A down time, the only employ on duty
looked at me, a pudgy youngster in pigtails,
and said the kindest words possible,
“You have a pretty face.”
More than sixty years have come and gone
and the comment still warms my heart.
It’s good to remember
the tiny acts of kindness
others have done for us
and how much they meant.
Have we offered just such help
many times too?
Is the circle completed?
Let’s pass out kindness today!