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: I lack potency. ~ The concepts and thoughts that I value will be overshadowed by a stronger presence.  The products of my mind and heart will be dismissed as insignificant in a crowd, and assaulted in the presence of a strong presentation.

The Beginning of Humility

“There are few absolutes inherent in the Twelve Steps. Most Steps are open to interpretation, based on the experience and outlook of the individual.

“Consequently, the individual is free to start the Steps at whatever point he can, or will. God, as we understand Him, may be defined as a ‘Power greater. . .’ or the Higher Power. For thousands of members, the A.A. group itself has been a ‘Higher Power’ in the beginning. This acknowledgement is easy to make if a newcomer knows that most of the members are sober and he isn’t.

“His admission is the beginning of humility — at least the newcomer is willing to disclaim that he himself is God. That’s all the start he needs. If, following this achievement, he will relax and practice as many of the Steps as he can, he is sure to grow spiritually.” – As Bill Sees It, page 191 (which in turn quoted from a letter Bill Wilson wrote in 1966).

There is nothing I hate more in this life than that sense that I am being ignored, whether it be real or imagined. As a creative soul, I have works that I hope will live beyond me in both time and impact. As a co-dependent aberration of my Self I fear the exile and rejection of those I hope to help, those that matter to me. I have lived my childhood dancing around tripwires of irrational guilt which was usually the result of exposing my humanity to the detriment of the exoskeleton of invulnerability. I forged a family icon as an expression of family superiority and uniqueness. I learned to hide silently and let the icon champion family pride at my expense as a person. Over time, I would find an escape through the military where the expectations where not mysterious and ever changing. Then I built a family of my own and the icon returned.

My journal writing gave me a refuge in my family of origin and remained with me into the marriage bed. My writing began and ended my marriage. I now count the post-marital apocalypse as the Goddess Eris doing for me what I could not do for myself. I now realize that when the fortress I built became a prison, the heart of God’s child within me screamed to be set free. The golden apple of discord that Eris bade me to consume brought an iconoclastic humility into my soul. My God ignored the proclamations of the icon, and heard the truest version of my Self. I have discovered that the pursuit of humility is the pursuit of happiness. I am heard when I learn to listen. Humility is the beginning of my positive freedom, my Self-actualization. It is also better to develop a process to encourage the connectedness that comes with humility than to suffer the consequences of humiliation that comes from isolated pride.

Although I am grateful that my Higher Power sent Eris my way, I would much rather work a process toward humility than reap the consequences of humiliation. I have no desire to live a life of perpetual chaos.

Useful Idea of 2021: My family icon of protective pride lacks the potency I need to live. The concepts that I value will be heard as I listen to the concepts that others value. There is no stronger presence then the God of my understanding in the true expression of my life. As a connected being it is impossible for me to be dismissed. The confidence that comes from humility will answer the pride that comes from fear.

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.

In 2011, I found that I perceived God as the ultimate manipulator, which was a terribly unuseful idea in this spiritual program of recovery. I remember a particular alcoholic relapse where I showed up to a meeting inebriated. As I was departing, one of the other members stopped me and told me that I needed to learn to surrender. I turned toward him in the full bravado of my intoxication and let him know that I was trained in the military that the only time surrender is discussed is when you are overwhelmed by an enemy. “Is God my enemy?” I asked. I slammed my fist into the side of my pick-up and proclaimed, “I will not surrender!”

“At least let me get you a cab,” he pleaded.

“No, I drive better when I drink.”

In jail that night I pondered my own angry question; “Is God my enemy?” No, I would not even be an annoyance to the force of His will. No, not an enemy. He was something much worse. He was the personification of all the irrational guilt and controlling manipulation I inheritied from my family of origin.

In reality, my active co-dependency associated initmacy with manipulation. In all my attempts to manipulate the Infinite One into what I viewed as a geniune relationship, I felt God ignored me. Today I recognize that the Higher Power is absolutely devoted to the expression of my own will unfettered by burning bush novas that terrify me into compliance. I understand that surrender is active, repetitive consent for aid. Eventually, consent rewarded becomes trust.

Sometimes my fear of life’s terms causes me to attempt to milk God for detailed blueprints. This is where I return to the insanity of pursuing absolute control over my living environment. When I respect the Spirit of Life as a free agent, I myself live free. The mighty force that smashs the chains of addiction and co-dependant expactations is not desinged to forge new bindings for religious appeasement.

Unuseful Idea of 2011: God is a manipulator ~ God is not interested in me, only in controlling me for his own purposes, to protect his distant control on the human species.

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.

In 2006 I officially entered the 12 Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous and began my long journey out of adult onset alcoholism and the childhood darkness of a codependant legacy. My maternal grandfather died of untreated alcoholism in Mobile when my mother was seventeen years old. I remember her talkng of his great intellect and salesmenship. His death threw her into a whilrwind of madness that her youth was not equipped to manage. She would marry three times, have an illegal abortion, and produce six offspring. She would use her children to buffer her from emotional collapse. We where all left with our own wounds from that experience.

The 12 Step program helped me identify eight manifestations of my family of origin’s emotional abuse; maternal emashment, alcoholism, a murderous heart, the humiliation of an unaddressed reading problem, self-hatred for an asthmetic condition, Christ appeasement obsession, curse of financial indebtedness, and a strong dose of imposter’s syndrome. The chaos storm of 2020 helped solidify this realization.

It was 2011 that I began looking to Al-Anon’s 12 Step program to dig at the roots of my destructive manifestations. It was that year that I was able to dip my bloody hands around in the gaping wound of my soul and identify the embedded philosophy of a tragic end. I tucked it away attempting to safely deal with it piece-mill. I have decided that the me of 2021 can now answer the me of 2011 to avert the gravity of my self-destructive black hole.

I share this process in writing in hope that it might be helpful to those who happen upon these words. I will also continue the “Courgage to Change” reflections.

Here is the voice of 2011:

1.  God is a manipulator (A co-dependant assertion, a family of origin adaption)

~ God is not interested in me, only in controlling me for his own purposes, to protect his distant control on the human species.

~ 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.

~ If I get out of line, God has a kill switch to amplify my lusts and natural desires to consume me, or, if I am able to overcome that, God can use my disconnected strength to turn me into a predator.

2.  In order to love others, you must hate yourself (confusing compassion and empathy with co-dependency)

~ You must hate yourself to love another.  The depth of effective love is measured in the level of self-hatred you can embody.

3.  I lack potency. (Public school peer interaction in conjunction with distrust of outsiders)

~ The concepts and thoughts that I value will be overshadowed by a stronger presence.  The products of my mind and heart will be dismissed as insignificant in a crowd, and assaulted in the presence of a strong presentation.

~ Uncontrolled and spiritually undeveloped people will attack or hurt me.

~ Personal assertions that are not wrapped in a mantle of pain, depression, and anguish will not be taken seriously.  Assertions expressed with happiness will be seen as frivolous and thus, discarded.

~ Honesty is a social control mechanism and has very little to do with the discovery of truth.

~ My internal reality is more important than my external reality

4.  I am bound by family icons of devotion, resulting in the two statements on failure.  Outside the family, inevitable and lethal.

~ If I desire to be free of emotional blackmail and manipulation, I must accept that failure is inevitable and I will disappoint those who become intimate, who get close to me.

~ If my failure is exposed, what is left of my honor demands my death.

Standby as I answers me.