I Promise

To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing. ~ Mark Twain

Resolution: a firm decision to do
or not to do something. A promise
to yourself. Most people each year
resolve — promise —to loose weight,
to exercise, to quit smoking.
Eight in a hundred succeed.
We of OA tried and tried and tried.
Always, the promises—and the diets —
were fuel for the compulsion.
I know now that no promise,
no temporary submission to restricted eating
would relieve me of my food obsession.
In OA I was given a suggested program of recovery
and all that was asked of me in return
was that I have a desire to stop.
That, I can do! I promise!

This poem utilizes ideas and phrases from For Today (Kindle Locations 3504-3512). Overeaters Anonymous, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Thank You For Believing in Me

Thank you for not judging g promise in me,
for not taking your cues from me,
seeing the miserable, lonely wretch I knew.
Thank you for seeing me in terms of weight,
dress size, for the dangling flap below my arms,
the thighs that rubbed together causing friction burns.
Thanks for liking my giggle when it bubbled out
betraying efforts to be dignified, respectable.
for saying i had a nice smile, a pretty face —
that bus station attendant couldn't have known
sixty years later what that still means.
Thank you for affirming me all that time
when I could not. Thank you for keeping my mind
fertile enough to understand I did have merit.
Thank you for believing in me until I came home
to OA and could accept that journey was complete.

Lust

Lust or lechery, intense longing, often sexual
but not stopping, sliding to rape, adultery,
incest, pedophilia, the seedier side of life.
Lust adversely affects important matters, interrupts  business.
Disordered love for people.Sometimes seemingly harmless,
sometimes wanting power or prestige almost erotically.
Lust is putting trivial desires higher than God.

Gluttony

Gluttony, overindulgence and overconsumption amounting to waste.
a Latin word for gulp down or swallow.
A sin depriving needy others of essential food.
When food is scarce, indirectly killing others.
Even obsessive anticipation of meals, constant eating.
A malady drawing crowds to Overeaters Anonymous
where fellows abound. Welcome. You're home here!

The Road Atlas

The trouble was that there was no road between me, the miserable failure, and me, the thin saint. So I retreated to eating and daydreaming. ~ Voices of Recovery (Kindle Locations 60-61). 

How do you get there? There's enough male in me
I'm not likely to stop and ask directions. And if I do,
I can't remember them or if I jot them down,
read what I wrote.
Even with a GPS I can get miserably lost.
I know the feeling well, There's  no way there from here.And I spent decades looking for the psychological path
to the me who had to be possible despite no evidence.
And finally I found the atlas, a book called Alcoholics Anonymous
as well as the road map I personally needed, The Twelve Steps
and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous. 

We Have Cures for That

If a rulerʼs anger rises against you,
do not leave your post;
calmness can lay great errors to rest.

There is an evil I have seen under the sun,
the sort of error that arises from a ruler:

Fools are put in many high positions,
while the rich occupy the low ones.

I have seen slaves on horseback,
while princes go on foot like slaves. Ecclesiastes 10:4-7

Fools equal the poor?
Rich means wise?
Rulers are fools?
Sometimes.
Certainly not always.
We generalize by the person on our mind,
assuming the example typifies the class.
We have names for that.
Blindness.
Intolerance.
Bigotry.
We have cures for that.
Tolerance.
Perception.
Love.

God, remove my prejudices.
Free me to see people as your children,
my siblings,
even when I’d prefer to be an only child.

Rollins, Barbara B.. A Time for Verse -
Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes
(Kindle Locations 760-765).

Teachable

Today I am teachable, with freedom to grow, to change, to resolve problems and feel good. ~ For Today (Kindle Locations 3440-3441).

Teachable sounds like trapped in a classroom,
subject to lectures, to drills, to frequently boring instruction.
Does the condition really imply freedom,
the probability of being enabled to grow,
to resolve vexing problems, to eventually feel good?
What would I give for a quality of thought,
a willingness, excitement to acquire a cure for my issues?
If the price is full commitment to working all twelve steps,
It's quite minimal payment for a huge upgrade in being!

Peace on Earth

The angelic message spoke not of the political,
social or geographic situation of the hearers,
The emperor in some place called Rome
had commanded people to travel days or weeks
despite illness, poverty, or other reasons,
so that stranger who had conquered them
of each of them. A crazy king held sway
over their homeland who thought nothing
of ordering all young boys in an area be slaughtered.
The message was for the shepherds and those they told,
for those who would hear the newborn in a cattle trough
when he began to spread the good news.
The message is for us no matter the news
if we choose to listen and accept the gift today.

Only You Choose for You

The choices that others make cannot negatively impact your experience unless you include them in your experience through your attention to them. Things come to you only through your Vibrational invitation—and they remain only by your continuing attention to them. ~ Abraham

It's your plate, your food.
That other stuff, remember,
"That's not my food."
Peace I ask of thee, o river,
When men to live serenely
cares will cease.It is a day of Peace on Earth
but it's up to us to claim our peace
and by doing that you may aide
those around you to claim their own.

Greed

Greed, a human-caused desire for possessions.
A sin because man condemns the eternal 
for the sake of mere temporary things.
Greed begets violence, theft. manipulation, Hoarders show. 
A state of restlessness of the heart, and 
consists mainly of craving power and possessions.
Making a higher power of lesser things. 

Sloth

Laziness we would have called it. Absence
of interest of habitual disinclination to exertion.
Not only physical but mental, spiritual — pathological.
Absence of affect producing boredom, rancor, apathy.
Forgetting the good stuff, forgetting our responsibility.
Look at a bloom, at an infant, untouched.
Powerless over food, living an unmanageable life.

Wrath

The Wrath of God? Hardly. A human emotion.
A deadly sin — anger, rage, hatred —uncontrolled.
Seeking vengeance. Endemic, to the seventh generation. 
Anger promoted to sin when fixed on innocence.
Desiring someone else suffer misfortune or harm.
Dante's  "Love of justice perverted to revenge 
and spite." Wrath enslaves people to themselves.

Envy

Some might believe envy just longing for.
But it's really almost frantic internal emptiness,
a heart-sucking pump, selective blindness, nonsight.
The envious don't see what they have,
God-given and humanly nurtured, in themselves.
They claim superiority, minimizing others with contempt.
Not seeing our fortune, we begrudge others'.

The Next Time You See Me

My home office will be a mess…
all the more so than It is today.
which is substantially.
I’ll have started on the task list
I made, added to, shaped up yesterday.
I’ll have done ten things
that needed to be done before now.
I’ll have not eaten sugar for more than
a dozen weeks, plus.
I’ll claim ownership to nothing
at the courthouse, even
the roll of gift-wrap paper
I left five years ago and it seems yet untouched.
I’ll hold dear new friends made
the past fifteen months, new memories
of decades-long friends,
gratitude galore for kindnesses done,
but also for time to rebuild myself
to relearn typing, to write and create,
to build the me I want to be.
I’ll remain as passionate about
twelve-step programs as I’ve been for a decade.
The next time you see me,
I’ll be retired again.

Ten Years Yet Just Begun

December 17, 2006
I considered myself from then
a member of Overeaters Anonymous.
On my way to church, having eaten breakfast,
I stopped for a cappacino and sweet roll,
got into the car, told God, "This is stupid."
If planned to try OA...after that holidays.
Who would start a week before Christmas?
Me. And thank goodness. When I fell
on Christmas Eve, hurt my rotator cuff
then went to England anyway on the 27th
I could have stacked on more stupid pounds
more misery, more self-loathing.
But thank God for the nudge.
So today it's ten years with many more to come.

OAStepper

Pride

The worst of the seven, corrupt selfishness,
pride not only precedes but causes falls.
Dangerous and corrupt selfishness, pride puts me,
my desires and whims above the welfare
of anyone else. Pride in my faith deceives,
disguised as humility,  so confidence in me
perverts self-love. Pride makes me the anti-god.

Prescription for Relevance

Coming to Recovery,
deciding this is for you,
is not joining a club,
but a voluntary
restyling of your life
as you consent to safeguards
that first feel like limitations
but as you continue like privileges
so that you come to rely
on the constraints
for your health and sanity
and a program that keeps
the context of your life relevant.

Eating for Wrong Reasons

Woe to you, O land whose king was a servant
and whose princes feast in the morning.
Blessed are you, O land whose king is of noble birth
and whose princes eat at a proper time —
for strength and not for drunkenness. Ecclesiastes 19:6-17

“Eat at a proper time. For strength.”
I’ve often eaten for weakness —
stuffing my face —
to bury pain, anger, humiliation.
I’ve eaten for strength, under God’s strength,
ignoring the compulsion to eat
but nourishing my body.
Like an alcoholic, I yield to my compulsion
unless God sets it aside
by mending the feelings,
by giving me joy beyond what compulsion
could ever yield.

God, move us beyond patches to real cures,
to comfort that really comforts.
Thank you for this gift.

The Grocery Store

When the day begins with surrender,
"Your will, not mine be done,"
even when cravings hover

near the surface, sanity prevails.
Even when it's necessary to shop for food.
You walk in the door and the featured display
offers not the dreaded pastries but pot plants.
The vendor offering samples has ginger snaps
and since you hate the taste of ginger,
you truthfully answer, "I wouldn't care for one."
You see the newcomer from yesterday's meeting.
visit with her, answering questions,
encouraging her, visiting, and when you part
you realize you've walked through the ice cream
without giving the cartons a single thought.
You complete your shopping list, temptations
at bay and check out knowing your will
stayed in its place, comfortable with
serenity in the market.

 

Delegate to the Manager

Delegate it to the manager. You have this really good staff that will take care of everything for you. You just have to delegate it — and trust it. ~ Abraham

Would you consider your Higher Power
to be your manager? How do you feel
About delegating to your manager?
Is that what you do? To delegate: entrust
(a task or responsibility) to another,
typically one who is less senior than oneself.
Would you turn your life and your will
over to someone less senior than you?
What about your hopes and dreams?
Is it right to have hopes and dreams
if you pray, "Your will, not mine, be done"?
Aren't we promised some hopes and dreams?
"If we are painstaking
about this phase of our development,
we will be amazed before we are half way through."
Hopes and dreams are fine, are within the plan
so long as they do not become
more important than the consciousness
of the presence of God in your life.
When you delegate to the manager
he remains the manager and while it may well suit His plan
to grant your hopes and dreams, and to accept your delegating,
He remains the manager and His will takes precedence.