I think many of us develop our faith as a result of hind-sight coupled with the practice of prayer and meditation. I certainly didn't "come by my faith" naturally. I didn't grow up in a family where it was openly practiced or even discussed. At family gatherings my uncle said grace before eating but he was chosen only because he occasionally sobered up by reading the bible. No one went to church on a regular basis. No one. I was in a church youth group in high school but I was the sole representative for our family at Sunday services. Fear absolutel[...]
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What I Believe – You and Your Higher Power
1 Living in the now shouldn't be so hard. Should it? Most of us no doubt think that's where we reside. However, I'd venture to say we spend more time dwelling on the past or anticipating the future than we spend just soaking up this moment. Unconsciously our minds slip into those other realms. They so easily seduce us, especially if we have lived through trauma of some kind or have fear as our basic mind set. Fortunately it is possible to change one's mind set. I didn't always believe that but being in recovery rooms and committing to a spiritual path ha[...]
I was at an Al-Anon meeting at noon today and even though the subject being discussed wasn't specifically "attachment," it did come up. Letting the behavior of others, their moods, their actions, their opinions and comments control how we feel in the moment is common to us "codependents." I still remember the first time I heard the term "codependent" and at the time I was in so much denial about my own codependency, that I didn't recognize how clearly the syndrome described me. I didn't want to be that person so I insisted I wasn't. However, since childho[...]
Circle of Family and Friends - You and Your Personal Community, What I Believe - You and Your Higher Power
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Being a witness to someone’s life is a wonderful gift. . .
I am currently reading a great book: Someone Knows My Name, by Canadian author, Lawrence Hill. It's a book about the transportation of Africans into America in the mid 1700's and later. The story is told through the eyes of one young female who was torn from her home and her family at the age of eleven, forced to travel by foot hundreds of miles to the slave boats and then brought here and sold. Her account of the trip, both the deaths and survival stories and her memories of those people left behind is told in meticulous detail. What has moved me the mos[...]
I heard an interesting talk tonight. The speaker outlined how the steps, one by one, had a spiritual hook that pulled us in the right, and sober direction. He reminded us of the line in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that says, and I paraphrase, "there will come a time when you are face to face with a drink (or a drug), and only God and your spiritual fitness can save you." Even though I have not been faced with that in my nearly 35 years of sobriety, I don't doubt that it silently waits for each of us. Unfortunately, I know more than a few who hav[...]
I heard a great talk today about the limitations we place on ourselves. The speaker insisted, and I agree, that our vision of who God is and what can be accomplished with God as the "bus driver," is far smaller than the reality. We've likely been doubting our capabilities on many fronts for years: avoiding a particular sport, perhaps; or being afraid to apply for a different job, sure we couldn't get it or "do it" if we got it, or even approaching a person we'd like to become friends with. Because we let our doubts imprison us, we fail to become the men and[...]
I heard a great talk last night by a long term recovering alcoholic and addict. He went through the steps and shared his journey, making it a talk that could be appreciated by both the old-timer and the newcomer. There was humor along with humility. A proper amount of pride in his successes but he wasn't prideful. And he shared a few really wonderful one-liners that I will cherish for a long time. One of them was that having faith means no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop. I had never thought of it that way but that's not only a wonderful image but a[...]
How I saw myself and how I felt were in the hands of others for the better part of the first four decades of my life. I "danced" around the actions and the opinions of every one, desperately trying to be accepted and not rejected. What had made me that way is likely owing to many things. I wasn't raised in a household where love was freely expressed, not between my parents or toward us four kids. I'm convinced, now that I've matured and have thirty-five years of recovery under my belt, that my parents felt unworthy thus couldn't pass on what they really ha[...]
Nary a one of you reading this is stumped by how to finish this sentence. No matter what path we have traveled to this point in our journey, we have heard that as certain doors close, new ones always open. It's a principle we can count on. And the new doors are always leading us to the next better place for us to be to experience that next level of knowledge or a deeper spiritual awareness or perhaps a detour that, at first, seems like a wrong turn but ends up being exactly where we had always hoped to go but hadn't dared to reveal to any one. The real[...]
And the rest of the above line in one of my favorite books is: "each time there is a choice to make." Perhaps uncertainty doesn't ever trouble you. And I am relieved to say it troubles me very little any more, but it used to haunt me. I just knew there had to be only one way to do every thing and it was up to me to figure it out. Alone. I hadn't yet made a friend of God. The idea that God could be one's friend seemed a bit childish in fact. It reminded me of my Sunday School teacher's words when I was in grade school. Surely my level of sophistica[...]