Daily Reprieve

Equipped with the updated and more useful ideas of God, I can move forward:

Useful Idea of 2021: God and I are one, even though I am not God. This is the paradoxical truth that makes me free in recovery and life. ~ Improving my communication skills between my truest Self and My Higher Power is a key element to spiritual growth and empowerment. God ignores my linguistics degree in manipulation.

Useful Idea of 2021: God is an investor in my Intent of Will and asks that I surrender my fears, trade them in for trust in a covenant relationship between the Higher Power and myself.

Useful Idea of 2021: God is my Life Source urging me toward expressive experience. He/She is God of everything or nothing in my life. I chose the former in a Step 3 covenant reaffirmation.

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Unuseful Idea of 2011: In order to love others, you must hate yourself. ~ You must hate yourself to love another.  The depth of effective love is measured in the level of self-hatred you can embody.

What is Love? The most useful definition for me is that it is a learned skill that consumes its user. Completed or perfected love drives away fear and that is its most useful characteristic for humanity, in my opinion. That is why it must consume me if it is to be transformative. Any time I sit with myself, I find that fear plagues me and prevents me from maintaining contact with my Higher Power. Love consumes the fear animl within. It is a magical skill that helps me remember my premortal existence, the Self that hungers to live in the Beyond. The 12 Step program gives me a proving ground to practice my magic as I am transformed. The success of my love is measured in the quality and quantity of helping life flourish without losing sight of the Self. The fear animal within me is a trickster masquerading as me. My positive selfishness is part of the love skill that vanquishes that imposter and allows me to truly live. The little beast uses self-hatred skillfully to bury itself within his lair in my psyche. The perfected skill of love is the only magic to counter this ever present force of self-hatred.

Useful Idea of 2021: Love is a transformative magic, a learned skill, and the primary weapon against personal fear and self-hatred. The 12 Steps provides a way for me to refine its potency in my life.

I have experienced the pain of betrayal and loss in the course of living that left me questioning my devotion to a God that allowed it all to happen. The wounds stayed fresh because I could not resolve the silence of my God in the midst of my personal injustice. In my anguish I saw a sissy whore in the mirror of the reward and punishment religion of my youth. I had decided that life was about avoiding a very special kind of pain; It is that pain that can only be administered by those you trust, those you draw near to you, those you want to hear your truest voice. I answered that vulnerability with self-castigation. I would beat them to the punch and would blame myself for the pain. Of course, a sissy whore invites abuse. Of course, a silly child invites soul-crushing correction. Of course, God manipulates me away from frivolity and towards social utility. Of course, those who closely know me savage the sacred in my soulscape. Of course, my death is as meaningless as my life.

As I catch my breath from my own beatdown, I withdraw, only to return when I can no longer bare the solitary confinement. God is just another parasitic spirit on this merry-go-round of pain. He is the only one who has enough power to deliver me from it and he will not because He finds utility in my futility. This is not a spiritually useful idea because it does not allow me to believe that my Higher Power has my best interests at heart. This program of recovery requires I develop enough positive selfishness to say Hell Yeah! I want to live. My best interests are an imperative to the program, and thus to my Higher Power.

God’s silence comes from His self-limiting inability to lie, to manipulate. Manipulation is the language of my family of origin. God refuses to engage in it. The language of the magical realms is the recognized intent of one’s own will. I chose to practice surrendering my fears to the Spirit. I honor God’s free will in the process of recovery and don’t take His apparent silence as rejection. The Spirit silently waits for the restoration of my own free will. He will test me along the way to reveal to me that I have an important power and responsibility in the manifestation of my Intent to Will. My problem was powerlessness. The solutions will not be dependency. My Higher Power is individually invested in my positive freedom. Now that is a useful idea.

Unuseful Idea of 2011: God is a manipulator  ~ God wants to control me for his purposes, wants me to be his sissy whore.  He uses my heart’s desires against me.  He has no desire for my ultimate success, only my advancement to control others.

Useful Idea of 2021: God is an investor in my Intent of Will and asks that I surrender my fears, trade them in for trust in a covenant relationship between the Higher Power and myself.