We Made It!

This day, being the day when many of us review the year and give some thought as to how well it went: we look at the social and economic tail-spin the world at large has been plummeting through, seldom stopping to appreciate the fact that we are here, and, for this moment, we are alright.

I sat down this morning... took a deep breath... lighting some incense and candle... took another deep breath. It was a simple act…mind you, nothing pompous or anything like that, but I love to do this: count the months… hmm… twelve of them: the days, three-hundred and sixty-five of them: the hours; eight-thousand, seven-hundred and sixty of these: the minutes too, because sometimes this year it has been a minute by minute challenge and there are, whew, five-hundred-thousand- twenty-five and six-hundred minutes… every precious one of these I honor and am grateful for.

It has been a full year: full of excitement, discovery: the love that was shared with my precious mate, Bonnie: pleasures of all sorts as well as expectations unmet, defeat at times and persistent bouts of pain too. But I made it out of nothing I have earned. I didn’t get this far because I am a good guy and God loves me more than the multitudes that did not make it to this day. If we are here, now; we just won the lottery of life this year and it has been our joy to have shared it with each other. 

Mostly, I am grateful for the bones that paved the way... the bones of those who have gone before... some of whom we mourned, who passed away this year: the ones who danced down the streets like dingledodies... the ones I shamble after as I have been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everyone goes "Awww!"

And I thank Jack Kerouac for most of that last paragraph... my gratitude goes on and on into next year. In 2012 we get an extra twenty-four hours... whoopee! uh... unless the Mayan Calendar ... nevermind.

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geo, 4,581

Addiction/ Treatment or Punishment

Our prisons are full and they are full of people who would not be there at all were it not for one addiction or another. It is hard to convince a non-addict/alcoholic that addiction is a disease that is treatable. Looking at the lives of those who have sought treatment and turned their lives around, it is obvious that our punitive reflex to drugs and alcohol related offenses only make the problem worse. We can injure any other part of the body, come down with any cancer or genetic disability and consider the person afflicted to be blameless. However, it seems to be impossible to see addiction/alcoholism as a brain injury equal to the toxic affects on the brain of overexposure to lead or mercury by society. The medical profession has known this for over a century. Today we have M.R.I.'s and other tools that can pin-point where in the brain we are injured by this disease. Whether or not it is a genetic or environmentally induced condition isn't contested because it is often found to be both.Furthermore, the genome having been decoded has found that the genetic disposition of the alcoholic is qualitatively distinct from that of a normal drinker.

Compassionate treatment goes much further than punishment and this too is known by all but politicians who prefer the demagoguery  of declaring a War on Drugs and Three Strikes laws to putting the equal funding into medical facilities.Tags such as The War On Drugs peg the emotional buttons that sane efforts don't evoke. It is time for a change.Turning our mental hospitals into compassion care centers for mental disease would go so much further in my opinion.

geo, 4,580

Love? God? Compassion...

 Love? It is an oft used word, like God, that is hardly understood at all. It is hardly understood at all because the word covers so much territory and carries so much baggage with it. 

Whenever I hear myself, or someone else, say; “I love everybody!” I am cautious. I fear I will be required to return their frequently misunderstood conception of what they believe love means and I become reticent to reciprocate. It is the same for me with the word God. The two are interchangeable in my mind. I’m inclined to use compassion more easily because I don’t have to think about its meaning. I instinctively know that Love and God are actions too; but, because of a lifetime of indoctrination, I hardly understood them that way at all. Compassion embraces the action and I automatically see the expansiveness of caring… deeply caring… without bringing with it any baggage of expectations, fear or churchy do-gooding. Compassion is a connection I make with the world around me and expresses itself immediately or not. I pray, or meditate, to be open to compassion and to be able to move with it.

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geo, 4,579

My practice keeps the wild dogs at bay

Sometimes I wonder why I am doing all of this spiritual-goody-two-shoes business. Really, am I a saint? What is this all about? However, I have developed and certain amount of consistency in my practice that keeps the wolf from the door. At heart I know I am more inclined to go after my own business and forsake this Bodhisattva crap. Really, I am serious. Why bother… we all end up under the same shovel of dirt anyway? 

But my practice keeps my wild dogs at bay. I sit every morning and allow my inner-self to percolate into an acceptable brew (I am aware that this is a pre-Mr. Coffee metaphor but allowing it, the inner-self, to drip doesn't fit). Somehow the power of what we call God transcends the selfishness of my desires.

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Geo, 4,578

Relationships with Other People and Isolation

No matter how long I’ve been around, I still go through periods where I want to isolate and don’t want to be around other people. I don't go insane or get into any destructive behaviors. I don't vegetate in front of the TV or cram my face with creme puffs... nor am I tempted to run to the liquor store; however, I have found that separation from other people is not entirely a negative thing. In fact, if I use that space creatively, the relationship I have with my innermost being is magnified for the good and the bad. But I’ve learned that such periods of doubt and depression ought to be cut short if nothing positive comes of them. These periods ought to improve my relationships with other people as well as with God because these are interrelated.

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 geo, 4,577

Have a Sacred Christmas

Many of us celebrate this day as the birth of Christ. To me it is the celebration of my own spiritual awakening… the birth of my spirit, the Christ within. The other three-hundred and sixty-five days of the year allow me the space to open up my own spirit and tap into the grace of that spiritual awakening. In that sense the cliché rings true, everyday is Christmas. I don’t have to wait for some Santa Clause vision of God to grant my wishes because my wishes don’t matter as much as the hope to pass on what I have found. It isn’t so much that I don’t have hopes and wishes for myself but, rather, my hopes and wishes take second place to the vision, the passion, the power and the grace of the Spirit of that Christ that was born in my heart.

The word Christ is from the Greek adjective, Christos, and it literally means, anointed one. Poets, philosophers and great minds of all sorts (athletes and warriors too) were said to be anointed with the spirit. Olive oil would be ceremoniously poured, or dabbed, over their heads as a public recognition symbolizing this spiritual anointing. It would not be improper then to call Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Muhammed Ali and Alexander the Great a Christ in this sense. It would also be easy to say that awakening the Christ within would then be an act of grace and an anointing: a christening of sorts, eh?

geo, 4,575

Experiance Trumps Opinion

When I listen to others explain spiritual principles, concepts, or visions of deity, I expect to hear them share their experience. My mind slams shut when I am proselytized by  opinions that are not from the heart. What I know of God is scrutinized by the same standards. If I haven’t personally experienced aspects of God, and only have opinions based on what someone else has written or said, no matter how holy the saint or sacred the text, then I am speaking from my head and not my heart about something I have no actual relationship with. 

I can say that I have experienced a seemingly serendipitous set of coincidences and felt an amazing release from the neurosis of alcoholism but I do not have a tag for it. I use the word God at times to explain this phenomenon but I prefer to call this power, The Spirit of Recovery. This removes the baggage that sometimes comes with this simple three letter word, God, for me. However, my experience does not grant me the permission to dismiss the experience of others; however fantastic or grand. Thus, coming from the heart, the truth of its bearer is to be respected.

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geo, 4,574

When Trapped in a Sewer: Take the First Step on the Ladder Out

When I first awoke to my addictions, I wasn’t ready to have more guilt piled onto of the already tremendous burden of my past indulgences. In fact, (besides a probable genetic predisposition to overdo everything) I was aware of my  failures, faults and shortcomings, so well that they were certainly one of the many reasons I was driven in the direction I took. After all, I had enough people pointing out the errors of my ways. I am thankful that my guides were patient with me and allowed me to inventory my life after I had a thorough understanding of what surrender to a Higher Self meant. So many people go back to old habits and addictions, I think, because guilt is forced on them before they grasp what surrender ought to reveal about their own resistance to it. I was still close enough to my bottom that I knew I had to climb out of that sewer and did not have to be forced out of it by anyone. Furthermore, I did not wish to become another religious nut. The world already has plenty of that kind of hypocrisy.

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geo, 4,573

Another Point of View

Each morning I sit at my desk with a view as Dawn paints a variety of coral pinks on the sandstone outcrops of La Cumbra Peak. I have lived in various places in Santa Barbara... some where I saw Dawn rise from a completely different perspective. In San Roque  Cathedral Peak looked greater than La Cumbra Peak. Elevation wise the two aren't even close and I think of these views sometimes when I get locked into my own beliefs. I.e., Christian  imagery of life after death is everywhere in our culture. I don’t dismiss it, nor in anyway intend to demean this outlook; but, I do believe that it is important that I ought to be free, but careful, when I express my own spiritual imagery of the unknowable. 

I came to believe with raw nerves and was sensitive to every implication and nuance expressed by folks I met on "the path". I know that I was barely able to tolerate most people’s concept of God and dismissed any and all visions of life after death; whether it would be the Christian heaven/hell or the Eastern ideas about reincarnation. To me it was adding an additional burden of belief onto an already sketchy proposition that God could and would relieve me of my disease if He were sought. Even using the male pronoun for my ambiguous perceptions of God was too much to swallow. I now understand that my own ideas are not superior to anyone else’s along these lines, that it is imperative that I respect the beliefs of others and do the best I can to not become dismissive of them.

As I awaken now I see a variety of colors painting the landscape of  a universal love some call God. And I understand that, as I move in position, those views change with me.

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geo, 4,572

A Renewed Enthusiasm for Service

I can admit that there are times when I am so depressed or caught up in my own desires and ambitions that the last thing on my mind is the safety and welfare of my fellow human beings. These are times when I am drawn to isolation and I certainly don’t wish to be involved in helping anyone but myself. I find periods such as these to be profoundly productive and not the negative experience we are warned of. This can be so because my relationship with an innermost resource runs deeply and is not so easily undermined. Contrarily, I have found that these experiences have spotlighted the need to reevaluate where I am and what I’m doing. I can use these periods as springboards back into a renewed enthusiasm for service.

Uninhibited, Naked Ease

Tuesday, December 20, 2011:

GLIMPSE AFTER GLIMPSE[1]

Uninhibited, Naked Ease

Remaining in the clarity and confidence of Rigpa[2] allows all your thoughts and emotions to liberate naturally and effortlessly within its vast expanse, like writing on water, or painting in the sky. If you truly perfect this practice, karma has no chance to be accumulated, and in this state of aimless, carefree abandon, what Dudjom Rinpoche calls “uninhibited, naked ease,” the karma law of cause and effect can no longer bind you in any way.

<< << <<   >> >> >>

[3]Authors such as Baudelaire and Rimbaud paved the way for Neal Cassady, the hero of Kerouac’s, On The Road. He exemplified what a free spirit ought to look like. Manners, responsibility and morals were mere social conventions… roadblocks to freedom. But, in reality, I was too timid to actually follow through with this nihilist philosophy. I saw that doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, was the best way to liberate my intuitions. Other people kept coming into that equation and I had to modify this notion because, as I went about doing as I pleased, I found that my actions caused unacknowledged harm to people I cared about. I’d overlooked the children my hero, Neal Cassady, abandoned; the women he left holding empty purses, and that he eventually overdosed, alone in Mexico on speed. This did not tarnish that so-called liberated image I held onto for myself.

However; tapping into the inner resource and truly liberating my intuitions, turned out to be the most exiting and adventurous discovery of my life. The “uninhibited, naked ease” of “painting in the sky… writing on water” arose from the depths of introspection, discipline and fellowship, the dharma and Sangha, of connecting with the universal and dynamic Self.       

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[1] Glimpse after Glimpse, Sogyal Rinpoche

[2] Rigpa is often translated into English as “knowledge”. The teachings of Sogyal Rinpoche uses the term as the view, path and the fruit of the path unified. It is also the name of Sogyal Rinpoche’s organization.

[3] geo, 4,570

The delusion that I am communicating

The practice of Mindfulness is not merely navel gazing. What appears to be idle self-obsession to the outside becomes a valuable tool to break away from self-centered conceits. I am at war with myself and, eventually,  my fellow human beings when I don’t practice constructive meditation. That which I thought was a harmless vice becomes another chain that binds my ability to open myself to others. If texting and facebook become the central unifying factor in my life, I am escaping, or diverting myself from, the powerful creative mind that is at the center of my conscious contact with this dynamo within that some call God. The delusion that I am communicating with others, or that I am having meaningful relationships online, is nothing more than a huge blind spot towards any spiritual growth if I spend more than 15 minutes a day on it.

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  geo, 4,569

I get discouraged. What it is that makes me so damned different.

I get discouraged and can’t figure out what it is that makes me so damned different. I find very…. very few people that I can agree with on most things. The people I associate with are either completely out of the loop with political issues and have no opinion based on anything but feelings or are so opinionated on the Right or the Left that any discourse is impossible. I especially hate getting into political wrangling as I grow older. I just try to keep my opinions to myself and let others take on the contest of will.

Even my associates in “The Program” seem to be… how can I put it? … so involved with each other that it is hard to break through. I mean, it takes a real effort to get close to anyone. I only have one or two friends I can actually have a human conversation with. The big secret is, the Alano Club is awfully cliquish in spite of the claims to the contrary. The young people clique with each other and most of he older people don’t socialize at all. There was a party this weekend but the hosts didn't give us the address. Even though I asked in response to the invitation. I should have called but I am tired of the exclusion-ism of the Alano Club. What is with that!!! 

I go to open meetings because I don’t like what I see as the result of closed meetings or men's meetings. Most, but not all, people in them are too Gung-ho for my tastes. Besides, I have closed meetings with my sponsor and closest friends. I am sober and I do sponsor people so don’t give me any shit about that. Then I got on facebook to expand my perimeters. I’d hoped to find people I could be able to communicate with but I seem to be cut-out of that too. I rarely ever get a comment on any of my posts. What is with that? Is what I Post so lame? Is it because I’m not using facebook to patrol for ‘tang? What am I doing wrong? I just post my Daily Meds from my blog and say fuck it for anything else.

Then I can whine about my ebooks. Only one friend and a few family members have even taken the time to purchase or read one after posting for three months on my page in facebook… damned near begging my so-called friends to look at them. So, I just want to stay on the pity-pot today and say “Screw you AA and my dear facebook friends.”

The Top of the Mountain

Sogyal Rinpoche tells a story that I take great joy in. It is about an especially "thick headed" disciple who had tried and tried to "get it". His master gave him a bag of barley and ordered him to take that bag to the top of "that  mountain over there". Being a devoted disciple, the simple monk carried the bag of barley all the way to the top of the mountain. Once there he was too exhausted to think and all mental resistance dissolved. At the top of the mountain he "got it!"

My belief is that "It" is always there but it is resistance that prevents me from knowing it. As long as the mind is full of resistance there is, as the love song goes, "no mountain high enough..."

Is Failure an Option?

[1] “I’m glad you are going to try that new job. But make sure that you are only going to ‘try’. If you approach the project in the attitude that ‘I must succeed, I must not fail,’ then you guarantee a drinking relapse. But if you look at the venture as a constructive experiment only, then all should go well.”

*****

[2] I have mixed feelings about this business of “not trying too hard” because, had I not given it my all, I doubt whether I’d be sober today. 

Going for a job might be entirely another story but, as far as sobriety goes, I know that failure is not an option. This attitude, of course, does not mean that I am driven to achieve the highest rank in heaven as far as spirituality is concerned. I see this drive among my fellows in meditation practice as one of the most annoying because I know I have been driven by it; especially very early on in the practice. I had to have the greatest and most profound revelations or aspire to be the teacher in the group… never to be an equal in the Sangha. Then the pain from old back injuries eventually piled up with age and sitting in the lotus position made meditation an agonizing experience, Pain forced me to take my place in a chair or assume a prone position on the floor. At first I found it to be a humiliating acceptance until I could no longer fake it with the group. I found that the simple act of taking a chair created in my heart the humility it takes to benefit from meditation.

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[1] LETTER, 1958: As Bill Sees It, 214, Only Try

[2] geo, 4,567

The Mountain Stream becomes a River that Empties into the Ocean of Grace

I sit and I think, “Why am I doing all this? It can’t simply be just about sobriety. What do I do now that I am sober?” For alcoholics or addicts our niche is working with other alcoholics and that seems to be enough for most of us; but, there is a higher aspiration and it is the aspirations of all the ascended masters from Buddha through Christ and beyond. That end is to transcend suffering, removing it from the equation of life and death. We come to get sober and find so much more. We come for one ounce of soothing balm and stumble into a river of it; and thus, finding the truth in the notion that we give away what we discover as we bathe in the mountain stream of grace so freely revealed to us.

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geo, 4,567

The kinship we have with each other

It is important to me to keep faith in a deep understanding that every man, woman and child already knows in their hearts what I want to give them. The reason it is so hard to give it is because they don’t need what I have. My task is to grasp the humility it takes to help open up others to this vital truth. When I meet another human being it is essential that I meet as an equal… no less… no more. This equality of spirit allows my heart to find the compassion that dwells within each of us. This isn’t just Pollyanna wishful thinking. It works when I try it and I fail when I don’t. The kinship we have with each other runs deeper than our differences.

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geo, 4,566

Humility and Bending the Knee

Being able to distinguish between the ego’s self-interest and our ultimate interest is one of the better outcomes of humility. Grasping and holding onto my plans and perceptions doesn’t allow for the free association of ideas beyond my own vision. To be able to see the lack of vision in others can be disabling but put to good use when I acknowledge that these failings are my own. Humility doesn’t involve bending the knee so much as it involves submitting the mind towards a more pliable instrument of recovery.

geo, 4,565

From My Sister, Joy

On the 12th Day of Christmas my Facebook gave to me, 12 chicks I'm blocking, 11 friends just watching, 10 corny topics, 9 games a freezing , 8 friends complaining, 7 stalkers stalking, 6 party invites, Fiiiiiiiiiiiiive Drama Queeeensssss, 4 game requests, 3 photo tags, 2 friends-a-pokin & 1 creep who won't stop inboxing meeee !!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011... AS BILL SEES IT: 210, Out of Bondage

 

[1]At Step Three, many of us said to our Maker, as we understood Him: God, I offer myself to Thee --- to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that my transcendence over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy power, Thy love, and Thy way of life. May I do Thy will always!”

We thought well before taking this Step, making sure we were ready. Then we could commence to abandon ourselves utterly to Him.

*****

[2]I find it interesting that this prayer is altered by one word from the Big Book: the word transcendence replaces victory. In giving this some thought I believe that transcendence describes the experience of the Third Step better than victory because transcendence doesn’t ask that my difficulties be obliterated or defeated. Rather, my experience has been, that I can rise above them. The difficulties are still there. In fact, the people I would wish to help can see them and how they don’t afflict my sobriety. Instead they compel me further into the embrace of my relationship with God.

If I had no difficulties then how would anyone believe that I have had any problems in the first place? We have heard them protest; “But I have real problems. If you had my problems you would drink too.” I have witnessed my fellows go through divorce, the death of loved ones, terminal cancer, and their own children’s suicides. I have seen all of these, and more, heart-rending tragedies endured; and, as these brave people did so, I watched that man or woman walk through it all with dignity and without drinking.

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[1] ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 63

[2] geo, 4,564

The Sangha and the Fellowship

The Buddhists call it, the fellowship of monks, the Sangha. The Sangha, to us, might be the fellowship of like-minded practitioners on the dharma path. The dharma path is the second Gem we take refuge in: the particular discipline the practitioner embraces. The third Gem of Buddhism is to take refuge in the Sangha. Thich Nhat Hanh (the Vietnamese monk) encourages his fellowship to embrace the culture and the religion of their origins. A Westerner that adopts Eastern spiritual practices can understand them better within the context of their own religious tradition. To become inclusive is the point and that is to avoid the temptation towards an exclusivity that pumps up the ego and leaves nothing of spiritual evolution. Those who would contend that Buddhism is the only true way to enlightenment are as wrong as those who would insist that Christ is the only path to God. The first Gem is to take refuge in the Light.

Staying in the Middle of the Herd... Faith over Reason?

I wince sometimes when I hear people of faith proudly declare that it was their best thinking that got them to hit rock bottom. I sincerely doubt that it was their best thinking or that they were thinking at all on their way there. It is as though they are encouraging us to abandon the neural development in our crania that was the result of three million years of evolution. To me this sounds like a call to abandon my own ability to think and submit to the authority of a book, group or sponsor. I do believe that there is value in keeping my mind open to the SUGGESTIONS of the Sutras, the Bible, the Gitas or the Twelve Steps of AA. The power of holding hands in a group, submitting to a guru or checking my ideas with a sponsor, is not repulsive to me either; but, I am adamant about retaining our own ability to reason. When it is recommended that we “stay in the middle of the herd” my first reflex is to say, “Yes, but use our God-given brains to check out where that group is headed.” After all, reason tells us, staying in the middle of a group of lemmings can take us blindly over a cliff. The experience of Jones Town and Heaven’s Gate ought to have warned us of the perils of blindly following faith over reason.

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geo, 4,562

MONEY, POWER AND PRESTIGE

Saturday, December 10, 2011:

MONEY, POWER AND PRESTIGE

History has shown, time and time again, that, when an individual is inspired to lead others on any spiritual path, the cult of personality is always bound arise no matter how egalitarian the beginnings were. There are a few exceptions; however, and they are powerful examples that such cults can be avoided if the authority of leadership is taken out of the hands of individuals and surrendered to a Power greater than them selves. This is a tricky transfer because, more often than not, someone (or a small clique) arises out of the fellowship to step into the power vacuum to assume the authority as the soul translator or translators of that Power. Taking the temptation of power, prestige and the possibility of amassing property away from the entire association is how A.A. has been protected from sliding into this morass. Bill W. and Dr. Bob took great pains to insure that they, or, what was then referred to as a board of directors (to become the General Service Office), turned over the reins of power to the fellowship’s group conscience. That, I believe, was one of the greatest acts of faith that has ever been witnessed by history and the example lives on today in rooms, small and large, throughout the world.

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geo, 4,561

God as a Cosmic Santa Clause

I know people who pray for parking spaces. That is okay as far as I'm concerned but for me it as a childish idea. What is my concept of a Power greater than myself if I believe I can use God as a cosmic Santa Clause that grants my wishes if I’m good enough? Uh-huh, is God checking a list to see who is naughty or nice? By the same token is it not a little absurd to add, “If it be Thy will?” Trust me on this one; it isn’t going to happen if the outcome isn’t in the mix. What kind of limitations would I be putting on a Higher Power if I don’t reason that an omniscient deity would not know already what is my heart’s desire.

One might ask; then, what use is prayer if we can’t ask God for anything? That is a legitimate question and the only reasonable answer seems to me to be that the best use of prayer is to tune my soul to the Heart of Compassion. Isn't that better than to be granted favors? It is amazing how well this works when I do this with this elevated intention. Healing happens in this attitude of piety created by humility. True humility is the recognition of who I am and my position within the reality of my life in relationship with the people I connect with.

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Geo, 4,560

The Chimeras of Virtue

Very often, I have observed, that the “Churchy” people have a harder time with recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction than atheists, agnostics or even hard-core criminals. Of course, I’m not sure of why this happens to be the case, but I suspect that the “Churchy” folks can be deceived into believing they already have a good relationship with God that needs little improvement. From personal experience, I know that if I believe that my only flaw is the dishonesty of my drinking, it is a sure bet that I won’t dig any deeper into myself to root out the causes that obstruct my spiritual growth. I don’t say this to slam my friends who are “Churchy” because I know that I am not excluded from the inclination to delude myself with the same chimeras of virtue. When I took a clear look into myself I saw the ego-centric neurosis that compelled me to do more than just drink myself into oblivion I found more than I ever expected.

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geo, 4,559

The Face I Know

I look in the mirror and see a face I barely know. How did it get this way? Can I smooth out the wrinkles or contours? Before I go any further with this, I can say that I am content that I have earned my age but I know that only a few cosmetic changes are possible concerning my image. Is this true too with the inner workings of the mind? Haven’t I developed over the years a lifetime and plethora of behaviors I can do little more to erase than the wrinkles on my face? I can’t turn back the clock and correct every personality trait but I can smooth them out a bit. If a spiritual regimen does so much for me as to simply make it easier to live with myself, I am more than pleased. This business of asking for forgiveness of God is silly to me. Isn’t it better to be forgiving of others for their derelictions than to pretend I am sorry for my own? I’m not proposing that guilt has no place but it often blocks, through maudlin genuflections, the clear recognition of what I can change and what I must rely on a Power greater than myself to do for me.

 

P.S.;I need to ask my Dad where he was 70 years ago today and thank him for his service.