The Consecrated Life

Of what does the consecrated life consist?
    Your life is a consecrated one when you are willing at all times to do the will of God --- when you are willing and anxious that God may be fully expressed through you, through your thoughts, words, and deeds, during every hour of the day.
    You are not concerned with the question of results. Results belong to God.
    Hear am I; send me (Isaiah 6:8).
Around the Year
With
Emmet Fox, p. 304

~

Happy Halloween: the most frightening thing to me is to go to my grave having not lived at all. That is the scary mask I wear today, and this night, we all try to shock each other via that possibility. 

Live well my friends.

I once troubled myself with the “Big Questions” like; how do I know the will of something as mysterious as what it is that we commonly call God? How do I know if I am acting in concord with a Spirit that can seem at times to be impetuous and arbitrary? Then it occurred to me that I was the one that acted impetuous and arbitrary and that the Heart of Compassion is always steady and works the wonders we call miracles in accordance with a divine will. When I act out of concern and compassion combined with the wisdom to know when to do so I can hardly go wrong. A peace that surpasses all understanding guides me through some of the most difficult challenges of my everyday experience. Prayerfully, attentively, and most willingly, I am awake to the creative possibilities of a life well-lived.

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To Humanize or to Demonize

Tradition Ten

“Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.”

Never since it began has Alcoholics Anonymous been divided by a major controversial issue. Nor has our Fellowship ever publically taken side on any question in an embattled world. This, however, has been no earned virtue. It could almost be said that we were born with it, for, as one oldtimer recently declared, “Practically never have I heard a heated religious, political, or reform argument among A.A. members. So long as we don’t argue these matters privately, it’s a cinch we never shall publicly.”

TWELVE STEPS AND 

TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 176

~

     I can’t say that I’ve never heard an argument about religion or politics among AA members on the back porch at the Alano Club. But, usually, such matters are lightly argued with no real consequence. Rarely do they filter into an AA meeting. The political season is at its most heated point a week before National elections but I haven’t heard anything about it in an AA.meeting. The Nation is divided as it has ever been but, only in an occasional share, will someone express an opinion that is disturbing. However, such opinions are mostly “water off a duck’s back” for the rest of us in the room.

     I have learned much from this attitude for my own personal beliefs outside of the rooms. I have always been of the opinion that “to stand for nothing is to fall for anything”. However, my attitude about most social issues is now to promote unity rather than to polarize… to heal rather than divide … to humanize rather than to demonize… those who have opposing views. This attitude has granted me a peace I could not have had otherwise. No longer waving a flag on the ramparts, I am stepping out front to extend a hand to those I would otherwise despise. I found out by doing so that they… “others”… are human beings too.

     Which takes more courage?

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Compassion

Compassion is not true compassion until it is active. Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion, is often represented in Tibetan iconography as having a thousand eyes that see the pain in all corners of the universe, and a thousand arms to reach out to all corners of the universe to extend his help.

GLIMPSE AFTER GLIMPSE
Sogyal Rinpoche

~

There is a knowing that goes along with acting on compassion… a knowing that my efforts are seen and carried by a power greater than myself. The arms of compassion compel as well as they protect when I act within their embrace. What does this mean to me? Let me act out of compassion beyond self-seeking and beyond the approval of others. Let me be at peace within myself… my faults and shortcomings as well as my assets… and know that I am known by the Heart of Compassion with a thousand eyes and a thousand arms to see and feel it all.

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The Cowbell: Live and Let Live

I have a cowbell hanging on my lanai (yes, lanai is a better word for the place than patio, or porch, or balcony because lanai is a Hawaiian word for porch, patio or balcony all in one). So, I have a lanai… like the island called Lanai. Lanai is the patio… the porch… the balcony of Maui. So much for that: what I have is a cowbell hanging from the ceiling of my lanai and paper wasps have made a nest in it. I saw them at work and looked up in there seeing nothing unusual but didn’t think anything of it until this morning when I shined my flashlight into the cowbell. There I saw… oh, it must have been a hundred wasps all cuddled up cozy in there. They don’t do much ‘til it warms up a bit. At first, I admit, I was appalled at the nerve of them little critters… don’t they know that this is MY cowbell!

    "May I see your papers?" of course, they have papers, they are paper wasps!

    I showed it to Bon Bon and she said, “Can you spray them with bug spray?”

Sexy Feminista

    Really, I didn’t want to commit genocide on the girls… ya know. That’s what they are… girls. The boyos are the drones whose roll is to only come in and put some love juice into the queen and then get their little butts outa there before they are eaten alive! The rest: the workers, the security guards and the scouts are all girls (kinda a Andrea Dworkin conspiracy of the sexual domination and exclusion… like, we know the ONE THING that we need men for!).

    So, I thought about it and figured that maybe it would be too pissy and dangerous to remove the cowbell. I might as well leave it alone. Winter is coming and when it is cold enough they will all go someplace warmer. Nah, I’ll let their illegal immigration piss off some of our Mexican pals South of here. Just live and let live… that’s what I think is best, eh?

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Convention: A Gated Community

I maintain that what an artist has to believe in is this: that there is a special world, to which he alone has the key. It is not that he must contribute something new, though even that would be an enormous achievement; but that everything in him must be or seem new, transmitted through a powerfully colouring idiosyncrasy.
He must have a particular philosophy, aesthetic, morality; his whole work tends only to show it. And that is what makes his style. He must have a particular wit --- his own sense of fun.

REFLECTION: V

Prometheus Misbound

Andre Gide

~

     To uncover, unchain and to open the iron jail house doors and to escape the conventions that ensnared me in the first place… that is what compelled me to take this path… to let loose my own “sense of fun”. I am a human being first and foremost before anything else. Even when I say that my name is George I am separating myself from the rest of humanity and stepping into a gated community whereby every house has an address and name to fence ourselves off from each other.

    Second to being a human being I happen to think of myself as an alcoholic with artistic strivings. This too makes me feel special within the gated community since I have given myself permission to come and go as I please. I feel as though I am an imposter within the gates and alone and vulnerable in the jungle outside looking back in because of this uniqueness.

    Once outside of the gated community I can see only a few alternatives: I can go back to where I feel safe as an imposter; I can stay in the jungle with drugs, alcohol and other entanglements; or I can forge my way out towards the loom of the light I see in the distance… to be truly authentic.

    I have no bone to pick with those who choose to return to the safety and comfort of the gated community… of becoming perhaps a productive member of society. That is a better alternative than staying in the jungle to contend with the hungry beasts of unrestrained desire. However, a few of us have banded together to trek through this jungle on the safari towards happy destiny. Buddhists call this safari the Sangha on the dharma path. Christians would call it the church on the path of righteousness. Our Muslim fellows would call this pilgrimage the Hajj and a personal Jihad. It is all the same journey from convention if we look at it objectively. It is in this spirit I stand with my fellow human beings.

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Going It Alone?

What comes to us alone may be garbled by our own rationalization and wishful thinking. The benefit of talking to another person is that we can get his direct comment and counsel on our situation, and their can be no doubt in our minds what that advice is. Going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous. How many times have we heard well-intentioned people claim the guidance of God when it was all too plain that they were sorely mistaken. Lacking both practice and humility, they had deluded themselves and were able to justify the most arrant nonsense on the ground that this was what God had told them.

Twelve Steps and 

Twelve Traditions, P. 60

~

There are times I wonder whether or not God has anything to do with this whole business of human affairs at all. Before I sink into the despair of doubt I have to reflect; where would I be without the Hand of One greater than me? There is a balance, however, where I follow the dictates of conscience or yield to the counsel of my fellows. There are times when the direction is clear to me alone but such times are rare indeed. It takes practice to know good sense when I see it. I can ask myself these three questions to figure out what action I ought to best take: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? If the answer to any one of these three is vague I should run to wise counsel… run! How much regret to I need for a word thrown into conflict based on false information unnecessarily without compassion in mind? Wouldn’t the humiliation of regret be worse than the humility to run it by another for an objective opinion?

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Forgiveness

“Made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves.”

Step Four: 

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions 

~

The topic at yesterday’s Sundowners meeting was Forgiveness. I listened carefully but heard no one speak of self-forgiveness in terms of felonies committed that can’t be approached without causing more harm. How does a rapist or murderer find forgiveness for crimes of the past? How can one forgive oneself for assaults so devious on humankind without it seeming trite and self-satisfying? How do the victims of sexual assault or childhood abuse forgive the perpetrators of such monstrosities? How do the family members of these victims manage the emotions stirred by these crimes?

    Admittedly, these questions do not apply to most of us. However, having contact in the rooms of AA with a broad spectrum of society, these sources of guilt, shame and blame come up more frequently than elsewhere. In looking at these crimes some of us have committed, it is important that we don’t skirt the issue or divert ourselves from the impact our behavior has had on our victims. Conversely, it is equally important that, as victims, we don’t avoid the emotions deeply engrained into our hearts by such crimes against us.

    I have a friend who was assaulted in an alley and was severely injured. Years later, he still suffers physical pain from that attempt at strong arm robbery and has told me, “I don’t want to hear this bastard’s Fourth Step confession if he were to come to AA.”

    Am I to apply the same standards of forgiveness applied to other simple abuses and misdemeanors under these circumstances? Can we expect a rape victim to forgive and forget? How does guilt for felonies of these sorts be excused? How do felons of this sort forgive themselves without maudlin self-serving? Is it enough to believe that God has forgiven us all equally? There is no need for immediate answers here. The important thing about the Fourth Step is to take the inventory regardless of the questions. It isn’t necessary to go any further in this regard. Trusting that the process will answer these questions and provide the solution is how this Step works for both the felon and the victim. A fearless inventory takes courage beyond the grasp of most of us. Without trust in a power greater than ourselves we are helpless to proceed from here.

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