Did I Step In Something?

    I can think of so many instances in which I could smell that unmistakable odor of dog-shit following me. I’d check the soles of my shoes without my glasses, and wipe off what I could see, but perhaps miss a trace. It didn’t take much really. All it took was a smidgeon of it hidden in the treads of my shoe to follow me wherever I went. I’d get in the car and it got smeared on to the gas peddle. I’d walk on a carpet and it got on it too. No matter where I went it went with me. There is no mistaking the odor. Finally, I’d take off the offending shoe and scour it good. However, once that was accomplished, there were those places I’d have go back to, hold my nose, and clean them up.

This is one way how karma can be explained. It doesn’t have to be any mumbo-jumbo about past-lives other than the life I am living. It is no sin to step in something. But to carry it around and stink up whatever I touch is karma. It takes putting on my glasses; practicing some introspection; cleaning my own shoes and covering my tracks; thoroughly accounting for my past, and then cleaning it up too. Cleaning up the list of people I have harmed are opportunities for growth… making those amends to get rid of the stink is what we in "Twelve Step" programs call the 4th through the 9th Steps.

Besides my obvious addictions, the stink I speak of are my character defects that follow me wherever I go. With the help I get from the Heart of Compassion, those areas that cause me the most trouble are lifted and I get help doing what I can about the messes I have made. What isn't lifted I have to work at. Fortunately, my Higher Power is capable of doing the heavy lifting.

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