Daily Reprieve

From the Daily Reflections of November 22;

. . . there are only two sins; the first is to interfere with the growth of another human being, and the second is to interfere with one’s own growth.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 542, 3rd Edition)

Happiness is such an elusive state. How often do my “prayers” for others involve “hidden” prayers for my own agenda? How often is my search for happiness a boulder in the path of growth for another, or even myself? Seeking growth through humility and acceptance brings things that appear to be anything but good, wholesome and vital. Yet in looking back, I can see that pain, struggles and setbacks have all contributed eventually to serenity through growth in the program.

I ask my Higher Power to help me not cause another’s lack of growth today—or my own.

END OF QUOTE

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I would think the prayer should be to help me, through my tenth step work, to see were I am a spiritual threat to myself or others.  For instance, I know that when I begin feeling a great deal of self pity or when I become paranoid of being judged unjustly, that fear and isolated selfishness are manifesting in me.  This is a pattern I have discovered in the moral inventory.  What I can change by will power, I do.  What I cannot, I turn to my Higher Power.

Another thing I think is important is to talk with my Gomu (God of my understanding) about is what I am doing that is useful and helps enhance my spiritual growth, and what do I do or can I do to support others along their own journey.  I think these more positive outlooks are step eleven pursuits.  Looking for sins belongs to step ten.  Maybe these are the only two virtues that are the flip side to these two sins.  I speculate.  I would rather quietly listen and make it intimate and personal with the Infinite One.

From the Daily Reflections of November 21;

Lord, make me a channel for thy peace—that where there is hatred, I may bring love—that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness—that where there is discord, I may bring harmony—that where there is error, I may bring truth—that where there is doubt, I may bring faith—that where there is despair, I may bring hope—that where there are shadows, I may bring light—that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted—to understand, than to be understood—to love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life.  Amen.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 99)

No matter where I am in my spiritual growth, the St. Francis prayer helps me improve my conscious contact with the God of my understanding. I think that one of the great advantages of my faith in God is that I do not understand Him, or Her, or It. It may be that my relationship with my Higher Power is so fruitful that I do not have to understand. All that I am certain of is that if I work the Eleventh Step regularly, as best I can, I will continue to improve my conscious contact, I will know His will for me, and I will have the power to carry it out.

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Saint Francis of Assisi, the Patron Saint of Animals and Ecology

This prayer entered the collective conscious in 1912 as “A Beautiful Prayer to Say During Mass.”  It was published anonymously and scholars suspect that it was written by a French priest, Father Esther Bouquerel (1855-1923), who was responsible for the publication and ministry that presented it to the people of his generation.  In 1915, after World War I had begun, the prayer was sent to the Pope and the next year it was published in Italian in the Vatican’s daily newspaper.  After World War I, a French Franciscan priest printed the prayer on the back of an image of St. Francis and circulated it, thus loosely associating it with the life of Francis. After the Great War, a French Protestant movement called the Knights of the Prince of Peace decided in 1927 to tightly bind the prayer to a Christian saint know for his pacifism.  So they told the world it was written by St. Francis in 1927.  Benito Mussolini became a fascist dictator in Italy in 1925.  Adolph Hitler had participated in a failed coup in Munich, was imprisoned, which gave him the time and opportunity to write Mein Kampf to be published in 1925.  In 1940, Hitler conquered France.  The prayer came out of a historical crucible of war.

St. Francis of Assisi was born in 1181 and Genghis Khan was born approximately 1162.  The Saint died in 1226 and the Khan died in 1227.  Both men believed they had a calling by their God.  One to build up a church and the other to expand an empire.  My Gomu (God of my understanding) is inspiration both to the beloved pacifist Christian shaman and the feared Mongol conqueror.

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

(The Tyger – William Blake)

This prayer is basically a poetic expression of a petition being made to God that is a familiar cry of the recovering alcoholic; “please let me be apart of the solution rather than the problem.” For me, it is like spiritual marijuana.  It feels good reciting it, but it does not really give me any meat hooks to hold spiritual substance in my spiritual pursuit.  It is the steps of AA that give it the necessary pragmatic substance.  If it works for you, please use it.

From the Daily Reflections of November 20;

. . . when making specific requests, it will be well to add to each one of them this qualification. “. . . if it be Thy will.”   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 102)

I ask simply that throughout the day God place in me the best understanding of His will that I can have for that day, and that I be given the grace by which I may carry it out. As the day goes on, I can pause when facing situations that must be met and decisions that must be made, and renew the simple request: “Thy will, not mine, be done.”

I must always keep in mind that in every situation I am responsible for the effort and God is responsible for the outcome. I can “Let Go and Let God” by humbly repeating: “Thy will, not mine, be done.” Patience and persistence in seeking His will for me will free me from the pain of selfish expectations.

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There is something very powerful and connective about this phrase, “Your will, not mine, be done.”  For me I am reminded of my place in this Universe.  I am released of the need to be in control of the outcome of the saga of my life.  It is my place to work within the daily circle.  I look for inspiration.  Where do I invest my efforts?  If my focus is on the empowerment of other lives, I am walking lock step with Gomu (God of my understanding).  Many of the isolated selfish things that would be apart of fearful prayers are automatically taken care of in ways that I could not have planned.  So my prayers for others are designed to weld my will to the force and flow of the will of the Infinite One.  I am a mortal in god training.  I am an alcoholic in recovery.

Light Bulb Memory:  1983 in Songtan Korea, laying in bed, her room was lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling.  The epiphany struck me and has stayed with me, that God’s will is not a line that we follow, but a way of being that radiates outward.  It is not a discernment of activities, but a discovery of a supernatural life.

From the Daily Reflections of November 19;

We A.A.’s are active folk, enjoying the satisfactions of dealing with the realities of life, . . . So it isn’t surprising that we often tend to slight serious meditation and prayer as something not really necessary.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 96)

I had been slipping away from the program for some time, but it took a death threat from a terminal disease to bring me back, and particularly to the practice of the Eleventh Step of our blessed Fellowship.  Although I had fifteen years of sobriety and was still very active in the program, I knew that the quality of my sobriety had slipped badly. Eighteen months later, a checkup revealed a malignant tumor and a prognosis of certain death within six months. Despair settled in when I enrolled in a rehab program, after which I suffered two small strokes which revealed two large brain tumors. As I kept hitting new bottoms I had to ask myself why this was happening to me. God allowed me to recognize my dishonesty and to become teachable again. Miracles began to happen. But primarily I relearned the whole meaning of the Eleventh Step. My physical condition has improved dramatically, but my illness is minor compared to what I almost lost completely.

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I do not like this fellow’s Gomu (God of my understanding).  It is one sociopathic deity.  He has been sober for fifteen years and he felt the “quality” of his sobriety slipping badly.  Apparently he was not involved in the pursuit of his conscious contact with God enough, and since his Higher Power could not get him to relapse, he hit him with a body full of serious tumors.  He states further that he had been dishonest and unteachable.  Both why he was guilty and what he learned is very nebulous and unclear.  I suspect that he is in a co-dependent relationship with God, and the unnecessary burden of guilt that he manufactures is causing his body to turn on itself.  It is an important skill to learn to separate the true from the false.  In this process, facts are our friends.  It is not necessary to beat yourself up to gain depth with your Higher Power.

From the Daily Reflections of November 18;

Occasionally. . . . We are seized with a rebellion so sickening that we simply won’t pray. When these things happen we should not think too ill of ourselves-. We should simply resume prayer as soon as we can, doing what we know to be good for us.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 105)

Sometimes I scream, stomp my feet, and turn my back on my Higher Power. Then my disease tells me that I am a failure, and that if I stay angry I’ll surely get drunk. In those moments of self-will it’s as if I’ve slipped over a cliff and am hanging by one hand. The above passage is my safety net, in that it urges me to try some new behavior, such as being kind and patient with myself. It assures me that my Higher Power will wait until I am willing once again to risk letting go, to land in the net, and to pray.

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I remember a story of a man named Jacob who wrestled with God or one of his duly appointed representatives.  He left with a limp and a promise of protection and prosperity.   Sometimes the path to connecting with my Higher Power is not pretty or graceful.  Sometimes I must chose to withdraw or connect in frustration and anger.  Yet to withdraw means that there must be a relationship to pull back from.  To fuss and fume means there is an acceptance of the very real presence of Gomu (God of my understanding) in my life.  Faith empowers a relationship and no one is going to have an intimate connection with me and not see me struggle.  I accept the fact that I am a bit of a spiritual savage and give myself some lee way.

From the Daily Reflections of November 17;

Almost without exception, alcoholics are tortured by loneliness. Even before our drinking got bad and people began to cut us off, nearly all of us suffered the feeling that we didn’t quite belong.   (As Bill Sees It, page 90)

The agonies and the void that I often felt inside occur less and less frequently in my life today. I have learned to cope with solitude. It is only when I am alone and calm that I am able to communicate with God, for He cannot reach me when I am in turmoil. It is good to maintain contact with God at all times, but it is absolutely essential that, when everything seems to go wrong, I maintain that contact through prayer and meditation.

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This holiday season is very quiet.  I have not decorated or put up a tree or felt the agonizing rush to complete a gift list.  I am no longer married, and my children are forging their own lives.  My Father is with me but is quiet and awaiting his time to cross over.  With prayer and meditation, I sense this is not punishment, but a calling to intimacy with my Higher Power. Removing all that rattles my brain and distracts my heart, I feel a loving caress.  Being alone now feels like being chosen by Gomu (God of my understanding).  I could fight this and hunt down human contact, but I am honored by the pursuit.  All else seems paltry.  This place was hard won, working through resentments and fears.  The Steps laid the groundwork for this new and profound knowing, this thing some call faith.  I will gratefully embrace this beautiful loneliness, and the ugliness that it used to represent slips away. Loneliness becomes solitude as I unite with God.

NINE YEARS LATER: My Father passed away in 2017, about three years after I wrote the preceding words. My offspring have sprung off, as it should be. I love any visitation I gain from them, but I value the sacredness of my Homestone, the reality of connection in the fellowship, and the lessening of fears that caused me to attempt to milk my Higher Power. When I come home and secure my perimeter, I work to become smarter, stronger, and more efficient. I no longer feel as if I am being punished for unidentifiable crimes. When I slow down, there are whispers of significance. I try to respond with gratitude. It is what I feel at this moment.

From the Daily Reflections of November 16;

What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 85)

Maintaining my spiritual condition is like working out every day, planning for the marathon, swimming laps, jogging. It’s staying in good shape spiritually, and that requires prayer and meditation. The single most important way for me to improve my conscious contact with a Higher Power is to pray and meditate. I am as powerless over alcohol as I am to turn back the waves of the sea; no human force had the power to overcome my alcoholism. Now I am able to breathe the air of joy, happiness and wisdom. I have the power to love and react to events around me with the eyes of a faith in things that are not readily apparent. My daily reprieve means that, no matter how difficult or painful things appear today, I can draw on the power of the program to stay liberated from my cunning, baffling and powerful illness.

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There is something clarifying and liberating when you know that you are dead or destroyed except for the reliance on some greater force or protective discipline.  I was assigned near the DMZ in Korea back in the 80’s to a facility whose one job was to notify military personal that the North was crossing over.  We knew that if that occurred, we probably had about ten minutes before we were destroyed.  So we trained to do what are lives had become about in that moment, and we would get the message south before we died.  Every day I wake up, I am grateful for my sobriety.  I must find a way to make it count.  I have to get the message south with every sober breath I draw.  My daily reprieve is not my personal property, but a gift to reinforce a mission, which is the primary purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous.  That primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics find sobriety.

From the Daily Reflections of November 15;

Those of us who have come to make regular use of prayer would no more do without it than we would refuse air, food, or sunshine. And for the same reason. When we refuse air, light, or food, the body suffers. And when we turn away from meditation and prayer, we likewise deprive our minds, our emotions, and our intuitions of vitally needed support.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 97)

Step Eleven doesn’t have to overwhelm me. Conscious contact with God can be as simple, and as profound, as conscious contact with another human being. I can smile. I can listen. I can forgive. Every encounter with another is an opportunity for prayer, for acknowledging God’s presence within me.

Today I can bring myself a little closer to my Higher Power. The more I choose to seek the beauty of God’s work in other people, the more certain of His presence I will become.

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I am obsessive in my approach to life.  I am better than I have been, but I am not sure that I will ever be able to balance it out to so that I can breath the air normally the way other Homo sapiens seem to do.  I forget to drink water days at a time.  Luckily my body seems to be able to extract enough from sweet tea or coffee to keep me from drying out.  If I get hooked into a project, sleep becomes accidental naps.  Food is a binge sport between real life and necessary existence.  I know this is not good.  Something in me just screams for more.  And then there is the prayer.  I talk to Gomu (God of my understanding) as if I am speaking to a muse.  It is an ongoing interaction with various formats and levels of intensity.  I really do not know what I would have done if my line of communication had stayed dead between myself and the great “I Am.”  Vital is an understatement.

————- Immediately after publishing this post, the following article came up in my news feed.  Maybe there is hope, maybe my God is just saying to continue to draw from the Source until . . . or maybe he just letting me know there is a biochemical reason, and that we will work it out.————-

OCD patients’ brains light up to reveal how compulsive habits develop

From the Daily Reflections of November 14;

. . . we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 86)

I invest my time in what I truly love. Step Eleven is a discipline that allows me and my Higher Power to be together, reminding me that, with God’s help, intuition and inspiration are possible. Practice of the Step brings on selflove. In a consistent attempt to improve my conscious contact with a Higher Power, I am subtly reminded of my unhealthy past, with its patterns of grandiose thinking and false feelings of omnipotence. When I ask for the power to carry out God’s will for me, I am made aware of my powerlessness. Humility and a healthy selflove are compatible, a direct result of working Step Eleven.

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“Intuition and inspiration are possible.”  This, to me, is the kernel of living a real life.  It is all the magic I have dreamed of as a child gaining dominance in the suffocation of my adult world.  I live to connect beyond the limitations of human fear.  The more others have beyond self connections, the more powerful we all become.   Alcohol was my last hail Mary for . . . something more.  In the short run it failed me.  Ultimately it opened me to the 12 steps of the AA Fellowship and the most genuine relationship I have ever had with God, through the Gomu concept, that is, finding a God Of My Understanding.

From the Daily Reflections of November 13;

We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no requests for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 87)

As an active alcoholic, I allowed selfishness to run rampant in my life. I was so attached to my drinking and other selfish habits that people and moral principles came second. Now, when I pray for the good of others rather than my “own selfish ends,” I practice a discipline in letting go of selfish attachments, caring for my fellows and preparing for the day when I will be required to let go of all earthly attachments.

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“Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible”  (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 62)

This Selfishness

What is this particular brand of selfishness that will kill the alcoholic?  It was described in detailed parables on the previous pages, but is summed up at the end of page 61 and the beginning of page 62:

“Our actor is self-centered – ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays. He is like the retired business man who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the minister who sighs over the sins of the twentieth century; politicians and reformers who are sure all would be Utopia if the rest of the world would only behave; the outlaw safe cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and the alcoholic who has lost all and is locked up. Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?”

1.  Referring back to the parable of the Actor, his world view is all centered around himself ALONE.

2.  The Retired Businessman taking it easy in Florida petting himself, and complaining about the world he has withdrawn from.

3.  The minister whose religion creates a world of me and them, and in this distance sighs over the sins of a time and place he rejects, protected within the walls of his cathedral, Alone and Isolated.

4.  Politicians and Reformers are sure they have the correct ideals and the rest of the world is messing up their Utopian state.  They are thus separated from the very ones they propose to help.  Their ideals insure that they are Isolated and Alone, severed from day to day reality and its struggling citizens.

5.  The thief whose justifications support his crimes by saying that he is especially wronged is thus separated from the world, in a self-imposed exile, alone.

It is this Isolating Selfishness that produces all kinds of social problems.  For the alcoholic  such as myself, it will escort me into a tragic and humiliating end.

Thus our prayers should not reinforce this kind of isolated selfishness.  Turning our attention to the very real suffering of others protects us from this deadly form of isolating selfishness.  We learn to make “no requests for ourselves only” when we are developing our habits of prayer.