An Old Lover

SUMA DE LA PERFECCIÓN

Olvido de lo criado,
memoria del Criador,
atención a lo interior
y estarse amado al Amado






PEAK OF PERFECTION

All things of the maker
forgotten-but not Him;
exploration within,
and loving the Lover.

Saint John of the Cross

&

Yesterday I heard a newcomer at a meeting say that her sponsor told her to write a good-bye letter to her old lover, addiction to drugs and alcohol. What a great idea! Am I any different from those who go back… time and time again… no matter how abusive the relationship was? Wasn’t I seduced by my own shortcomings… by my desire for comfort, self-esteem, that feeling that all is well, conviviality, or power and prestige? Didn’t originally chase after her? Didn’t I hold on to the good times and then tried desperately to bring them back (as the memory of them faded into the past)? For some of us, it got so bad that we were isolated by our dependencies and held captive… bound to the bottle, pipe or rig, in dark rooms… cut-off from friends and family.  And, once I found that this abusive lover wasn’t such a good catch, that my love for the bottle was never reciprocated, didn’t I try to be free of her? Wasn’t this dependency, or addiction, a bad lover; a lover that became one of those stalkers one reads about in tabloids? Didn’t I go back, time and time again, in spite of the wreckage this relationship caused in my life? Didn’t my friends tell me she was bad news and that I was better off without her. I even knew better?

    The point of a letter of this sort is to see in print where dependency took us and to see the power of its seduction and trickery… wearing various guises. Until this becomes absolutely clear, I am not delivered from its grip. Just like stalkers aren’t always kept at bay by restraining orders, this obsession must be arrested by a power greater than us. Even when I see it clearly I must realize that I lack the power to do anything about its power over me. This is only the beginning, because it is the release from bondage to self that gives us the power to ignore those drives that enslaved us. In doing so we are able to see that it wasn’t the bottle to blame but the seduction came from within. Ironically, it was also from within that I found the solution in the Heart of Compassion. That was this Holy Spirit that resonated strongly enough for me to be generous and respectful of my old lover. I can pass by her in the liquor store, or smile on occasions where I see her dancing with others at wedding parties and so on. This is so because I am now wedded to a true lover, whose heartbeat is compassion, and no longer have a need for such an abusive relationship.
geo 5,313