Daily Reprieve

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

. . . and became willing to make amends to them all.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 77)

One of the key words in the Eighth Step is the word all. I am not free to select a few names for the list and to disregard others. It is a list of all persons I have harmed. I can see immediately that this Step entails forgiveness because if I’m not willing to forgive someone, there is little chance I will place his name on the list. Before I placed the first name on my list, I said a little prayer: “I forgive anyone and everyone who has ever harmed me at any time and under any circumstances.”

It is well for me to contemplate a small, but very significant, two-letter word every time the Lord’s Prayer is said. The word is as. I ask, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” In this case, as means, “in the same manner.” I am asking to be forgiven in the same manner that I forgive others. As I say this portion of the prayer, if I am harboring hatred or resentment, I am inviting more resentment, when I should be calling on the spirit of forgiveness.

END OF QUOTE

———————————————–

I think you can accomplish this step without ever entangling it with questions of forgiveness.  In fact, forgiveness requires that I account for that which was done to me and that is not the focus of this program.  I am to look at what I have done and how I can make that right.  Why?  So I can stay sober and live freely.  I have no control over their welfare and I accept the things I cannot change.  I am concerned with cleaning up my side of the street even though their side of the street may be littered with feces and rotting corpses.  This is a very pragmatic morality I embrace in Alcoholics Anonymous.  The reason I put ALL persons I have harmed on my list is not because I have forgiven everyone, but because I must deliver the kill shot to all the wondering zombies of my personal guilt that might come at me with a first drink I cannot refuse.

Then the Spirit of Forgiveness will do Her own work, healing my mind and heart.  She will defend my new life and vindicate my courage.  I will be able to approach all men on equal footing with no further need to let my isolated selfishness create more collateral damage.  I do not believe that it is possible for me to forgive in isolation, for that leads to morbid self-reflection and self-loathing.  I can be open to the Spirit of Forgiveness which is a connection to the feminine aspect of Gomu (God of my understanding) and allow the work of Her transformation to take hold.  I just have to be willing to kill the zombies first.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

Made a list of all persons we had harmed, . . . (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 77)

When I approached the Eighth Step, I wondered how I could list all the things that I have done to other people since there were so many people, and some of them weren’t alive anymore. Some of the hurts I inflicted weren’t bad, but they really bothered me. The main thing to see in this Step was to become willing to do whatever I had to do to make these amends to the best of my ability at that particular time. Where there is a will, there’s a way, so if I want to feel better, I need to unload the guilt feelings I have. A peaceful mind has no room for feelings of guilt. With the help of my Higher Power, if I am honest with myself, I can cleanse my mind of these feelings.

END OF QUOTE

—————————————————-

For me, the amends process has been a change in the way I interact with others.  The list of people I had harmed reveals my particular brand of insanity acted out on the world stage.  I asserted my will based on certain self-delusions.  I lived as though anything that could be interpreted as a personal assault was the overriding reality of all life on Earth.  In some way, the struggling mortals surrounding me must compensate me.  I sought to extract payment and was rewarded with greater pain and validation of the world as something I needed to protect myself from.

When I faced the reality about myself in the moral inventory and I could see where I had wronged others, I took advantage of the plan of action provided in the 8th and 9th steps to build a new life based on this personal truth.    There was to be no more cringing in the shadows of my personal horror movie.  From now on, my interactions were going to be motivated by trust and respect for Gomu (God of my understanding) and others.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

We in our turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men. What seemed at first a flimsy reed, has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God.  A new life has been given us or, if you prefer, “a design for living” that really works.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 28)

I try each day to raise my heart and hands in thanks to God for showing me a “design for living” that really works through our beautiful Fellowship. But what, exactly, is this “design for living” that “really works”? For me, it is the practice of the Twelve Steps to the best of my ability, the continued awareness of a God who loves me unconditionally, and the hope that, in each new day, there is a purpose for my being. I am truly, truly blessed in the Fellowship.

END OF QUOTE

————————————————-

I have struggled with today’s daily reflections.  I feel too critical of the contributor.  What is it that disturbs me so?  I walked away and attended a meeting.  I have been working to adjust my perspective so that I could harvest the spirit hidden from me in this recovery meditation.

Process?  Desperation led to willingness to grasp what appeared to be flimsy reed, and the persistent messy clinging of alcoholics responding as drowning men gain experiential evidence of the loving and powerful presence of God.  Why would I prefer the phrase “a design for living” rather than just saying I have been given a new life?  If a functioning design for living is synonymous with a new life, what does it matter?  Neither phrase takes away from the assertion that Gomu (God of my understanding) has given it to me.  It is a process from desperation to faith.  Maybe it is because a design sounds more pragmatic and less like a fantasy of magic.

The contributor seems to be at the faith end of this spectrum and talks about daily rituals to express gratitude for a pragmatic spirituality (design for living that works) and sees beauty in the Fellowship.  When attempting to explain what this new life is that has been given by a powerful and loving God, it becomes an intertwining of personal experience (“for me”) and the shared system of the Twelve Steps.  Again there are declarations of the faith of one who is recovered from a “hopeless state of mind and body”  (Alcoholics Anonymous, page xiii) in reveling in the awareness of God and unconditional love, hope for a daily expression of personal purpose, and being blessed in union with the Fellowship.

Maybe what has been disturbing to me is that I am somewhere between drowning man desperation and the faith of the recovered when I look at my own relationship with this design for living.  I do trust the process.  I trust Gomu, for the most part.  It is me that I have second thoughts about.

“And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone-even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 84-85)

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 62)

My selfishness was the driving force behind my drinking. I drank to celebrate success and I drank to drown my sorrows. Humility is the answer. I learn to turn my will and my life over to the care of God. My sponsor tells me that service keeps me sober. Today I ask myself: Have I sought knowledge of God’s will for me? Have I done service for my A.A. group?

END OF QUOTE

————————————————-

Another important humility question to ask:  Am I connected and accountable to others who know me and are invested in my highest manifestation?

“Going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous.  How many times have we heard well-intentioned people claim the guidance of God when it was all too plain that they were sorely mistaken.  Lacking both practice and humility, they had deluded themselves and were able to justify the most arrant nonsense on the ground that this was what God had told them.  It is worth noting that people of very high spiritual development almost always insist on checking with friends or spiritual advisers the guidance they feel they have received from God.  Surely, the novice ought not lay himself open to the chance of making foolish, perhaps tragic, blunders in this fashion.  While the comment or advice of others may be by no means infallible, it is likely to be far more specific than any direct guidance we may receive while we are still so inexperienced in establishing contact with a Power greater than ourselves.”  (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 60).

From Today’s Daily Reflections (August 5th);

How persistently we claim the right to decide all by ourselves just what we shall think and just how we shall act.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 37)

If I accept and act upon the advice of those who have made the program work for themselves, I have a chance to outgrow the limits of the past. Some problems will shrink to nothingness, while others may require patient, well-thought-out action. Listening deeply when others share can develop intuition in handling problems which arise unexpectedly. It is usually best for me to avoid impetuous action. Attending a meeting or calling a fellow A.A. member will usually reduce tension enough to bring relief to a desperate sufferer like me. Sharing problems at meetings with other alcoholics to whom I relate, or privately with my sponsor, can change aspects of the positions in which I find myself. Character defects are identified and I begin to see how they work against me. When I put my faith in the spiritual power of the program, when I trust others to teach me what I need to do to have a better life, I find that I can trust myself to do what is necessary.

END OF QUOTE

—————————————————-

When I take a solitary stand against my alcoholism, I must take a stand against my own mind and body with my own mind and body.  It is a suicide mission.

In the recovery program, I found ways to connect with others and with my Higher Power.  Through the collective conscience of recovery, I find a victory I had never thought would be possible.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

Faith, to be sure, is necessary, but faith alone can avail nothing. We can have faith, yet keep God out of our lives.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 34)

As a child I constantly questioned the existence of God. To a “scientific thinker” like me, no answer could withstand a thorough dissection, until a very patient woman finally said to me, “You must have faith.” With that simple statement, the seeds of my recovery were sown!

Today, as I practice my recovery – cutting back the weeds of alcoholism – slowly I am letting those early seeds of faith grow and bloom. Each day of recovery, of ardent gardening, brings the Higher Power of my understanding more fully into my life. My God has always been with me through faith, but it is my responsibility to have the willingness to accept His presence.

I ask God to grant me the willingness to do His will.

END OF QUOTE

—————————————————————

In recovery I have been a lazy skeptic.  A scientific skeptic is proactively attempting to remove fallacious thinking from a theory to get as close to the truth as possible.  A lazy skeptic is one who has a habit of using intellect to shoot down areas of accountability.  A lazy skeptic is a professional critic of life.  Everyone is struggling to put together a mythology that works in their lives.  For me to have a mythology that worked in my life, I had to give up the role as professional critic and gather what bits I could find, and assert to myself what I believe is real, and my mythology had to include a Loving God. Something that I can hold onto.

This is why smart people have such a hard time in recovery. They have enough intellect to shoot down the working mythology of others. I do believe there is a loving God out there, yet the goal of this holographic universe is to develop a working mythology that allows us to overcome our lower self destructive versions and allows us to become a higher version of ourselves, one that can be helpful to others.

The way from lazy skeptic to scientific one is open-mindedness and work, I think.

[ My Definition of a Working Mythology ]

From Tomorrow’s Daily Reflections;

Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 77)

It is clear that God’s plan for me is expressed through love. God loved me enough to take me from alleys and jails so that I could be made a useful participant in His world. My response is to love all of His children through service and by example. I ask God to help me imitate His love for me through my love for others.

END OF QUOTE

—————————————

The love of God in this whole recovery process only becomes relevant to me as I learn to hear and comprehend communication from Gomu (God of my understanding).   Until that becomes a “working part of the mind” (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 87), I must rely on the strength of my self-love and desire for self-preservation to motivate me to help others.  I must find a way to give what I desire to keep.  So, until that time, the best I can give is a simulation of His apparent love.

I am posting tomorrow’s reflection today because I have to make a long distant journey on an amends’ adventure.  God grant me the serenity, courage, and wisdom for this mission.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

At the moment we are trying to put our lives in order. But this is not an end in itself.  (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 77)

How easily I can become misdirected in approaching the Eighth Step! I wish to be free, somehow transformed by my Sixth and Seventh Step work. Now, more than ever, I am vulnerable to my own self-interest and hidden agenda. I am careful to remember that self-satisfaction, which sometimes comes through the spoken forgiveness of those I have harmed, is not my true objective. I become willing to make amends, knowing that through this process I am mended and made fit to move forward, to know and desire God’s will for me.

END OF QUOTE

———————————————-

“I am vulnerable to my own self-interest and hidden agenda…self-satisfaction…is not my true objective…”

What then is my true objective?

“…through this process I am mended and made fit to move forward, to know and desire God’s will for me.”

The tools this program trains me to use so that I may have a helpful life to other alcoholics is prayer, meditation, principals of the steps to live by, and sponsorship received and given in the fellowship.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.   (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 83)

When new in the program, I couldn’t comprehend living the spiritual aspect of the program, but now that I’m sober, I can’t comprehend living without it. Spirituality was what I had been seeking. God, as I understand Him, has given me answers to the whys that kept me drinking for twenty years. By living a spiritual life, by asking God for help, I have learned to love, care for and feel compassion for all my fellow men, and to feel joy in a world where, before, I felt only fear.

END OF QUOTE
———————————————————–

In context on page 83 of the Big Book, the spirituality that surpasses theory and becomes something I live out is cleaning house and making amends to the people I have hurt.  I think the spiritual life is acting out on the realization that individual human lives are significant.

From Today’s Daily Reflections;

God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, Courage to change the things we can, And wisdom to know the difference.   (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 125)

The power of this prayer is overwhelming in that its simple beauty parallels the A.A. Fellowship. There are times when I get stuck while reciting it, but if I examine the section which is troubling me, I find the answer to my problem. The first time this happened I was scared, but now I use it as a valuable tool. By accepting life as it is, I gain serenity. By taking action, I gain courage and I thank God for the ability to distinguish between those situations I can work on, and those I must turn over. All that I have now is a gift from God: my life, my usefulness, my contentment, and this program. The serenity enables me to continue walking forward.

Alcoholics Anonymous is the easier, softer way.

END OF QUOTE

——————————————————————-

The convergence of these three paths lead to the most powerful expression of my life.  The path of serenity is where I develop my ability to hear and understand Gomu (God of my understanding).  The path of courage is where I develop my interactive usefulness to God and others.  The path of Wisdom is where I take the events of my life and make them a way of living a balanced life.  I have the tools to learn from my experience at the crossroads of these three paths.