Since the Tenth Step is part of my daily routine, I try to think of it as a gentle, warm, and loving way to take care of myself. By continuing to take my own inventory and promptly admitting when I am wrong, I clear out many unwanted attitudes that might otherwise clutter my day.
This Step has helped me to learn that living one day at a time involves more than pulling my attention back from fears about the future. It also means leaving yesterday’s baggage in the past. Each day I ask myself if carrying this extra weight will in any way help me today. If not, I can drop it here and now and walk away from unwanted negativity with a lightness of spirit.
Today’s Reminder
On this new day, let me quietly reflect and search out any negative feelings that are left over from yesterday. Old resentments will interfere with my serenity today. Perhaps it is time to let them go.
“Each day, each new moment can be an opportunity to clear the air and start again, fresh and free.”
…In All Our Affairs
END OF QUOTE—————————————
I have trouble with letting go of the day. A new day doesn’t usually feel like something given to me, but something arriving to take me in directions I prefer not to go. But the darkness of eventide provides me with a respite, a playground for my imagination, a place where the exploration of ideas meets no criticism from the collective machine that grinds through the daylight. I am jealous for this time, and allowing a ritual such as Step Ten to accompany me to this sacred escape is not something I relish.
Yet, had I not invited alcohol, gaming, and movie binging into this temple of Morpheus because I was eaten away with thought worms that fed off my life. Neither the parasitic worms nor the solutions of escapism provided me with respite, release, or freedom. The deadliest criticisms I had to endure never came from the surrounding society. Step Ten allows me to smash all the mirrors that have nothing to do with my own personal inventory and to stop trying to hit targets for my life provided by ghosts of inadequacy. It is never the day that needs to be renewed. It is me. A well informed spirit has no fear of walking in the daylight. I desire that. Thus, I surrender the quiet to my Higher Power through this ritual.
“Can you imagine the number of mirrors this man must have smashed?” ~ J.K. Rowling
Yes. I can. He had to smash every single mirror, except one. I keep mine clean and clear with Step Ten. To your own self be true.
Step Nine says I need not make direct amends to those I have injured if, in doing so, I might cause further injury. How do I know whether or not to take action?
If direct amends are inappropriate, I can trust my Higher Power to let me know. Otherwise, if I have worked the Eighth Step and become truly willing to make amends, I believe the opportunities will arise when I am ready.
For example, I was unable to discuss my personal life with my mother. Fearing her rejection, I rejected her instead. An upcoming visit presented an opportunity to make amends, but I wasn’t sure I was ready. Would making amends at this tie injure me?
After my mother arrived, I had the feeling that this was “the time.” I prayed for courage and asked my Higher Power to help me find the words. My mother sat down with me in a quiet moment and, to my amazement, brought up every subject I had wanted to discuss. I realized that the opportunity to be close to her had always existed, but I hadn’t been willing, until then, to take part in it.
Today’s Reminder
My Higher Power does not put any challenges before me that I am unable to face. The comfort I find in that knowledge can overcome my fears.
“The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.”
~ John Burroughs
END OF QUOTE—————————————
It sounds to me that the best approach to the Step Eight and Nine amends is to list all, to become willing to make amends to all, and then, after an honest conversation with my sponsor or other points of accountability, to make a notation, a mark, and to set aside those that might cause further harm.
These set-aside amends, I make to my Higher Power and seek inspiration for a lifestyle amends. I pray for those who deserved an amends from me, and only if my Higher Power gives me opportunity and inspiration, do I carefully move forward.
Otherwise, I change the way I live in honor of that karmic debt.
“There was once a very small town with a narrow cobblestone lane that ran north to south through the town. In the center of the town, the lane was lined on both sides with many small kiosks for food, tea, and all the other items needed for living. There were numerous other lanes and paths that ran both parallel and perpendicular to the main lane that went through the center of town. One of the rules of this town was that all donkeys, which most of the town people used to carry their goods, had to be tethered just outside the town center in a special area designed just for them.
Unfortunately, one day one of the townspeople forgot to tether his donkey securely and it got loose, wandered down into the center of town, and settled several yards before the tea kiosk on the north end of the lane blocking access to anyone attempting to walk south down the lane. Now this particular donkey, who was very big and very stubborn and was used to getting his own way, refused to move as people tried to talk him or even shove him out of the way. Since no one could get by the donkey, a crowd began to gather. Those brave souls who tried to slip in front of or behind the donkey to get to their favorite shop would most often receive a swift kick. Since the owner was nowhere to be found, the townspeople became exasperated. The donkey was ruining their day.
As they were discussing what to do, one of them looked north up the lane and noticed a famous Taoist master, who often came to town for some tea, watching their activities from some distance away. “Ah, he will know what to do one of them said to the others. Let’s watch and learn from him.” The Taoist master continued walking toward them until he reached one of the perpendicular lanes, where he turned and disappeared. The townspeople stared in disbelief. “He always walks this way to get his tea,” one of them said. “Where has he gone?” In confusion, they then returned to figuring out how to get past the donkey. A few minutes later the Taoist master suddenly appeared at the south end of the lane, on the other side of the donkey, walking north toward the tea kiosk. With a smile on his face, he waved to the townspeople as he entered the kiosk to get his tea. It didn’t take the townspeople long to realize that he had simply bypassed the donkey by making an extra effort to walk around the block.”
I am working yet another 12 Step program in ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunction). My first sponsor in the program retreated to the safety of his home and devoted himself to family life. As far as I know, he and his family are doing alright. I turned to the man who had been his sponsor and asked that he help me continue forward with the program. He agreed. We had great conversations and I appreciated his intellect. He was helpful to me until we got to the 3rd Step. He seemed to become aggressive toward me and he recognized it. He did not know why and we dismissed it and moved on. It was not something overly hurtful, and was even somewhat playful.
On Labor Day, 2024, I was chairing an AA meeting and all seemed to be going well. But my ACA sponsor had just received some disturbing news about one of his loved ones getting caught up in the web of addiction, and was now in the hospital. The upbeat nature of the sharing in the rooms was more than he could bare, and he shared his pain with us and his feeling of being personally responsible for transferring the disease across generation lines, since it was his granddaughter. He ended his share with “fuck you.” He had said that he didn’t want to dampen the mood and bring us down, and he doubled dipped with a weak attempt to alleviate the dead silence in the room with “I have a joke…never mind.”
I am not sure what he expected in a room of 42 alcoholics, but he was obviously not getting the personal healing or affirmation or…I don’t know. He would share several times more when others in the room tried to respond with traditional AA guidance. Before the meeting was over, many members were just getting up and leaving. I was blind-sided by his behavior. I brought the meeting to an end and went to him afterwards.
“Are you okay?”
He told me he was expressing remorse which he said is a perfectly natural human emotion. I thought to myself that his view of his own behavior was remorse. He apparently did not recognize his own aggression.
It did not make sense to me that he was feeling remorse about something he had absolutely no control over, and felt no remorse over something he should have supreme control over. He was no new-comer to the rooms.
“Is there anything I can do to be helpful?”
He said that maybe I could pray to my Higher Power. But he said it in a way that I did not know whether he was being serious or sarcastic.
I left and spent time praying to try and understand what had just happened. Early in my recovery period, I had shown my ass a few times in the room. I had hurt for the loss of my stepson to a drug overdose. I tried to focus on the part of his expression that I related to. But I could not shake the feeling that something ugly had just happened.
I called my AA Sponsor who told me about being at the mercy of emotions sometimes in sharing in the rooms and having to live with the consequences. I talked to several other people I trust. One who knew me more than anyone ever has, and one that was actually present in the room at the time.
The next day my ACA sponsor apologized to the group for violating AA protocol, “but I do not apologize for my thoughts.” He sounded like someone who was coerced into giving an apology. I could not even remember the particulars of his thoughts. It was the emotion of anger being vomited out on the unsuspecting that stayed with me. But that was my perspective. I decided to reach out directly to him via text, because he has a habit of talking over people when in direct communication. I am more at home with writing.
I suppose it would be unfair for me to reveal exactly what he said, because he spoke freely trusting me. But I am sure there are many that were in the room on Labor Day who felt their trust had been violated. Never the less, I will speak in generalities about that text communications. I will quote myself exactly and relay generally his response.
“I am not sure if you were being sarcastic or genuine, but I have reached to the Infinite Lonely (what I call the God of my understanding) to communicate with the Most High (what he calls the God of his understanding) requesting favor and protection for your grand daughter.
Are you angry or carrying a resentment toward me? In looking back to Monday (Labor Day), is there something I could have done better in chairing the meeting?”
He told me that Monday was not about me and he stated plainly that I was doing what I was supposed to do. He expressed a feeling of closeness to me.
He said that he was concerned that everybody in AA has an oatmeal answer for everything. He seemed to regret that he expected something different. He stated that he had done too much personal work and as a result is keenly aware of human behavior. He said that his problem was that he became impatient with everyone and that he should have been more accepting of people who just don’t know.
His mind imaged the end of the world being populated only by people from AA. Would that be the best examples of humanity? He stated that we both knew that would not be true.
He then turned to my assertion that I had spoken to my Higher Power to speak to his Higher Power about his granddaughter and said something I find interesting. Here I will quote his words exactly to avoid losing anything in my paraphrase.
“You can choose a ready guide from some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice. You can choose from phantom fear or kindness that can kill. I will choose a path that’s real. I will choose free will.” (I later learned that this is a quote from Rush’s song, Free Will).
I like this as a stand alone quote. But in context with what we were talking about it felt a bit like a backhanded critique of my assertion. I try to push my personal paranoia down. He said, as if it was to make the relevance of the above quote clearer that he is not a group think sort of guy. Again, I relate but don’t actually understand the relevance.
He ended that conversation with an assertion that he knows he unintentionally confuses folks in the rooms, but he will not compromise the freedom he has found through ACA. He expressed gratitude to AA for his sobriety and ACA for his freedom.
I also want to be free in the working of my own program. I don’t want to suppress who I am to keep the interstate of his communication unobstructed. So, I sent the following text to him:
“I will say that I left that meeting hurt, confused, and defensive. I was not the only one. There was a mass exodus toward the end of the meeting. Your expression of remorse came out as anger and contention and blindsided me. A lot of my reaction stemmed from my own past with playing diplomat for explosive emotions. Isn’t the exercise of freedom at the expense of others a form of dominance? I relate to your anguish and remorse. And I have seen meetings absorb a lot of pain for individuals. But your intellect and presence coupled with the shotgun proclamation of “fuck you” felt like an assault. I think you could have managed that better with more consideration for the collateral damage to those who have less time with the program. I strongly suspect that your words should have been shared with your sponsor first. I am going to pull back and work the moral inventory of my ACA with my VA counselor to give time to heal. I do love and respect you. And I wish you to be always free. Just let me get out of the way first ;-)”
This did not seem to set well with him. I will quote exactly what follows because he demonstrated to me that he is likely to repeat his lack of consideration and combativeness in that particular fellowship:
“I appreciate you informing me of your feelings but as many people as you saw move away, many moved toward me. I don’t intend to explain myself to anybody. Sorry your feelings were hurt. Maybe a little more time will give you a thicker skin so you can understand things that aren’t as warm and fuzzy as you’d like to see them. You don’t know this, but along with you, I pick up on a regular basis a number of sponsees and with my methodology work them through the steps. Go ahead and be the master of ceremony in the meeting. Everybody loves you and I do too. Thanks for being the voice of the hurt and suffering.
Maybe you’ll be able to be more consistent in working the ACA program with someone else. It might possibly open your eyes to the codependency that regularly displays itself in the rooms of AA…but then again, you might not be ready for it.
If you decide you want to continue, I’ll be available. I have a question: How many people are you working with having completed your 12 steps? I’ll be glad to show you my schedule if you want to see it and that’s not brag, that’s fact.
If I am not mistaken, I got your ACA sponsor through the 12 steps of AA and ACA. He wasn’t able to maintain his program. Real nice guy. I don’t want to be unkind but you may want to apply a firmer hand with your sponsees instead of becoming their buddies.
Please respond. I’d like to hear what you think.”
So, I responded:
“I think you are effective. I most certainly will not argue that I have work to do on myself. It seems you are angry with me and seek to push a button. I do not wish to engage further.”
He continued:
“It’s not possible for you to provoke me to anger and I’m not here to argue, but maybe in 20 years you’ll be able to see it. I see a lot of people get drunk on the emotional side of the program. There is a lots of “love” going around.
I’m done.”
I document this so that I don’t have to repeat myself for those who know me face to face and wonder why I am making some changes in my participation. Feedback from readers is always welcome, and I know this is probably too personal to be blogged. But writing is the best exorcist of my personal demons.
I am looking for a way around the donkey in the alley.
NOTE: I have kept specific information such as names and locations out to protect anonymity. Only those who know me in recovery will be able to identify the players in this drama.
When it came time to actively pursue the Eighth Step (“Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all”), I stopped dead in my tracks! I knew of quite a few people I had harmed but I was absolutely unwilling to even consider making amends to some of them!
My Sponsor suggested I divide my list into three categories: those to whom I was willing to make amends, those to whom I might make amends; and those to whom I would absolutely not ever make amends. When I finished, I started Step Nine by making amends to those on the first list.
The amazing thing was that, as I proceeded, I found some of the names from my “maybe” list shifting to my “willing” list. In time, even some “absolutely not” people appeared on my “maybe” list. Eventually it became easier to make amends, even to “absolutely not” people. My reward? Some renewed friendships and family ties; more importantly, an ability to face the new day without guilt, because I had owned up to my responsibilities.
Today’s Reminder
I will not let myself be stopped from taking Step Eight or Step Nine because I can’t do it perfectly overnight. I will let myself be where I am today, and do what I am able to do.
“It does not matter how slowly you go
So long as you do not stop.”
~ Confucius
END OF QUOTE—————————————
I was told to face my most difficult amends first. I suppose I was willing to take on the entire list as long as it was taken one by one in my mind. I gave my full attention to one target at a time making sure that I was prepared to actively listen, to consider and learn for my own battle with that mental obsession, and with the hope of finding a very pragmatic way to make things right. I spent time with my Sponsor preparing, to make sure that I was not preaching nor was I making it about me. It was the beginning of learning to be an active listener which is a skill I need as a Sponsor. It was just another way I was being enhanced or modified by the process. One Step at a time toward a better, freer version of myself.
When my study of the Steps reached Step Seven (“Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings”), I stumbled on the very first word. “Humble!” I thought, “The last thing I need is to be more humble.” Hadn’t I been humble all my life, putting everyone’s needs ahead of my own? What had it ever brought me except abuse?
But Al-Anon suggested that perhaps I had confused humility with humiliation. Humility does not mean begging for mercy. Real humility, I discovered, is the ability to see my true relationship to God and to my fellow human beings.
The second word wasn’t much easier. I had learned not to ask anyone for anything. Al-Anon showed that my knowledge and experience are limited. I don’t know all the answers – and I don’t have to know them! I can ask for help.
My concept of the last word has also changed. I used to think of shortcomings as crimes, faults, sins, or mistakes. Now I think of them as blocks within me that prevent me from reaching my full potential and distance me from my Higher Power.
Today’s Reminder
There are many things that I can do to improve my life and to further my recovery, but I cannot heal myself. Today I can ask for help in becoming free of all that blocks me from my true self.
“If my problems have brought me to prayer, then they have served a purpose.”
~ As We Understood . . .
END OF QUOTE—————————————
Step 7 – Humbly asked Him, the God of our understanding, to remove our shortcomings.
Alternative versions of the Seventh Step minus humility:
Step 7 – Impatiently told the God of our understanding to get His ass over here and remove our shortcomings.
Step 7 – Expectantly allowed God to review our self-appraisal and remove the shortcomings we have identified.
Step 7 – Resentfully asked God to remove His own shortcomings of neglectful detachment and blood magic.
Step 7 – Apathetically told God our shortcomings and their elimination are His job and not ours.
Step 7 – Despairingly asked God to remove our emotions and transform us into automatons.
Step 7 – Fearfully asked God to print out a blueprint of self-transformation and cheer us on as we prevent social criticism.
Humility activates the magic of connection and is necessary to embrace the truth of my situation. For me, this Step touches on the one aspect of this program that gives us permission to seek out the loving supernatural of something greater than myself, that truly seems to care about my life and our Fellowship. It is the beginning of seeking conscious contact with My Higher Power.
Step Six speaks of being entirely ready to have God remove all my defects of character. Yet I find that I often cling to my defects because they give me a certain amount of pleasure.
What defects could possibly give me pleasure? Revenge, for one. I spend lots of time creating mental scenarios in which I punish those who have hurt me. I also get a great deal of enjoyment from thinking that I am never wrong; in other words, I cling to my pride. Yet these characteristics are defects that get in the way of living the king of life I want to live and prevent me from treating myself and others with love and respect. There is abundant reason to let them go, but to do so, I have to become willing to lose the enjoyment they sometimes deliver.
My recovery will have a giant void as long as I am unwilling to give up my shortcomings. If I want healing, I must turn over my will, my life, and my character defects to God.
Today’s Reminder
Are the small, temporary pleasures I get from my defects of character worth the price I am paying to keep them? If not, I may be entirely ready to let some of them go today.
“I know that help is waiting only for my acceptance, waiting for me to say, ‘Not my will but Thine be done.”
~ The Dilemma of the Alcoholic Marriage
END OF QUOTE—————————————
The primary focus of removing defects of character aka shortcomings is to remove thoughts and behaviors which impede my connection with my Higher Power. I suspect that some of them might remain to keep me in need of my Higher Power until other more subtle but insidious defects are discovered and targeted for removal. The litmus test for me is to ask what is getting in the way of being a part of something bigger than myself. What makes me devalue a fellowship that has my best interest at heart? What turns the genuineness of my interaction with the Higher Power into perfunctory ritual? What calls to me to become a god in isolation rather than a child of the Infinite, a dweller between the worlds?
I want to change frequencies and connect to the beyond. I am entirely ready.
When I took Step Five I looked carefully at the words, “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being . . ..” The order of these words, placing God first, then myself, and then someone else, struck me. So often I have been vaguely aware of some truth in my life that I was unwilling to admit to myself. Yet my Higher Power had already placed that thought in my mind. He must have –if I’m trying to ignore it, I surely didn’t put it there.
I try to use this when making decisions about my life. When I assume that my Higher Power has already put the answer in my mind, I can then be willing to acknowledge that answer– whether I think I’ll like it or not. It may rise up into my awareness right away, or it may take some time and patience, but I can trust that it will become clear. Then I share my thoughts with another person I trust. This process helps me to take action on the answers I receive and to move forward with my life.
Today’s Reminder
There is nothing in life that need confound me. With my Higher Power’s help, I can find the answer to any problem I face. This knowledge gives me courage to follow through with action. I need only be willing to accept the answer I receive.
“Look within! . . . The secret is inside you.”
~ Hui-neng
END OF QUOTE—————————————
There was once a great argument about whether zero actually exists. Mathematics deals with calculations of what is. Was there actually a place where absolute nothingness was true? In the end, pragmatism won out. Zero makes mathematics work. Is the concept of God a variable for the absolute infinity of existence? In the 12 Step program, the God concept wins out because it works. Not because we can answer with absolutes.
“I try to use this when making decisions about my life.” Pragmatism over absolutes. Transformation over transaction. I never face impossibilities, mystery, or completions without a surrender to my Higher Power’s pragmatic reality protecting my efforts. As in mathematics, I have an “order of operation.” I seek inspiration from the macro-infinity (God out there), confirmation from the micro-infinity (God within me) and working validation through the connective infinity of those invested in recovery of the highest version of self.
Personology is a word I created by splicing Personal Mythology. Because the denotation of mythology is something not true but fabricated from imagination, it was inadequate to describe what I meant when I said Personal Mythology. There are four parameters that define one’s Personology:
Creative Story Writing to capture elusive or paradoxical concepts and express them with the simplest clarity possible
Spiritual Hypothesis Testing to explore incoming evidence and ongoing experience with life beyond the organic veil
Establishes a Peace Treaty with the swirling chaos and mystery of our environment
Provides Pragmatic Inspiration for the living of our individual mortal lives
Use it if it fulfills the pragmatic imperative of your recovery.
How easy it can be to justify our own unacceptable behavior! Perhaps we excuse ourselves, claiming that we were provoked or had no choice. Or we dismiss our actions by telling ourselves that everyone does the same thing. With these and other justifications, we pretend that our wrongs don’t count. This denial must be overcome when we take the Fourth Step.
With this Step we take a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. It is fearless because of the strong spiritual foundation we have established by taking the first three Steps. It is moral because we list what we feel has been right or wrong about our conduct. And it is searching. The only way we can take this Step thoroughly, searchingly, is to resist the desire to justify and excuse what we uncover. It may demand courage and self-discipline, but by freely acknowledging who we have been, we can make positive changes about who we are becoming.
Today’s Reminder
I am a human being with strengths and weaknesses, capable of achievements and mistakes. Because I accept this, I can look closely at myself. Today I will find something to appreciate and something to improve.
“You never find yourself until you face the truth.”
~ Pearl Bailey
END OF QUOTE—————————————
There are several delusion producers in my life: programing from a dysfunctional family, addiction’s self-protection in my psyche, layers of fear from perceived threats, and the manifold coping skills to accommodate pain aversion.
In the 12 Step program, I have found that Hope and Action with a litmus test of whether I am helpful to others is my primary method of living a genuine life. Hope targets a destination of value. Action keeps that hope from metastasizing into wishful thinking. The usefulness to others proves the value of my work.
The moral inventory helps me see the truth about me and the life I have been living. It is a process that gives spirituality and self-recovery a pragmatic push toward fulfilment of whatever part of the Higher Power has been embedded within.
~ I am powerless over the effects of alcoholism and family dysfunction.
~ I am powerless over the “Laundry List traits,” or the traits I developed to cope with my family’s dysfunction.
~ My life is unmanageable when I focus on others rather than myself.
~ I did not cause my family’s addiction or dysfunction.
~ My feelings and thoughts are separate from the thoughts of my parents and my family.
~ I can stop trying to heal or to change my family through my current relationships. I can stop trying to change others.
~ I can stop condemning myself without mercy.
~ I am a valuable person.
~ The solution is to become my own loving parent. I will learn to reparent myself with gentleness, humor, love, and respect.
~ As a Self-parent, I seek the real identity of my core being, and increased self-esteem, genuine courage before authority figures establishing win-win social negotiations, development of my intrinsic ability to share intimacy, replace fears of abandonment with attraction to strength without losing a tolerance of weakness, to feel and appreciate stability, peacefulness, and the reality of financial security, to learn how to play and have fun in life, and to choose to love people who can love and be responsible for themselves.
~ As a Self-parent I will teach my inner core child to establish healthy boundaries so that such beneficial limits will become easier to set; I will teach him to make healthier decisions so that he will no longer fear success nor failure; I will teach him to connect with a support network that will help him slowly release his dysfunctional behaviors; and I will teach him to work with his Higher Power to expect the best and get it.
The Third Step talks about placing my will and my life in the care of a Higher Power. For me, this Power is a presence that loves me as I am, that accepts me with compassion on the bad days as well as the good. Once I have accepted that the destructive presence of another’s alcoholism has affected my life, I need the benevolent influence of a Power untouched by this disease. What I do in turning over my will and my life is to become receptive to guidance; I become willing to accept the care of a Power greater than myself.
I think of this care as a source of love and support that surrounds me in my daily life. I do not need to earn it or to work for it; I need only be receptive to it. I continue to have a will to exercise and a life to live, but I do so bathed in a light of love and understanding.
Today’s Reminder
When I open my heart to a Power that fills me with love and acceptance, I can begin to extend those qualities to others. I may not do it perfectly or even consistently, but I can recognize my progress one day at a time.
“God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.”
~ Elizabeth Barret Browning
END OF QUOTE—————————————
I did not seek a Power “untouched by this disease.” There is a natural cruelty to a Higher Power that only officiates the big, infinite reality of life. I looked for a power intimately acquainted with my own suffering. I looked for a Power that embraced my individual life. Is it possible that when the words, “it is not good for the man to be alone,” were written, this Higher Power was letting us all know that It was lonely.
“I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?”
~ John Green, the Fault in Our Stars
It is this intimate Higher Power that I seek, and that I trust to care about me and mine.
Elizabeth Barret Browning began writing poetry under the protective umbrella of her father’s massive slave-owning business in Jamaica. She sacrificed that protection for the intimate love of a fellow poet. He had fallen in love with her through her writing. The marriage of Elizabeth and Robert Browning brought an end to her affiliation with her Father’s individual-crushing dominance and a new poetry arose from the intimacy of the married couple as they moved from England to Italy.
For me, the ultimate god-gift is genuine, intimate care that hungers for my reciprocation. No more distance. I seek an exclusive relationship with a Higher Power that hungers for the same. The paradox is that when I have such a reality in my life, I want to share it with others. I suppose the Infinite One can have an exclusive relationship with everyone and there is no risk of losing my own private intimacy.
Daily Reprieve 
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