Humility

The topic for this morning’s recovery meeting was "humility", an attitude or self-concept that I have found to be of extreme importance. As I commented during the meeting "I listen better" when humble and can then take action accordingly. I take humility to mean that I am "right sized", openly admitting and living within my strengths and weaknesses. If I am feeling either grandiose or like a worm, I am "in my ego" and likely to distort what I hear and my resultant actions. If, on the other hand, I approach any situation with humility, I am apt to perceive conditions accurately and then respond in a way that "increases the integrity of the universe" (Charlie Horton).

Unconditional Love

Many years ago I prayed to see things the way God does and was then granted that gift. It is my understanding and feeling that God views us and our antics through a lense of love. I now view myself and others with fondness, much the way a parent might view his or her own child. It was remarkable for me to be listening to a person in front of me berating me and have my only feeling be love for that person. The experience helped me to understand some of the behavior and comments of Christ. I have found no judgment or conditionality there. "The God of my childhood has given way to the God of my womanhood, a God of many names----Allah, Shiva, Great Spirit, Lord Krishna, Lord Buddha, Yahweh. This is the God who is present in the tiniest acorn and the vastest ocean." (Valerie Brown)

Living In the Now

Admittedly my disability has made life very difficult for me but today during my recovery meeting I was contemplating its gifts in my life. The theme in that meeting was the very human tendency to project our worries into the future and the preference to live in the present. My disability has helped me stay in the "now" since my present reality, even when experiencing some pain, is enjoyable. My future may also be enjoyable but I can also project wheelchairs, pain, suffering and death. I prefer to stay in the present while also acknowledging what the future may hold but leaving that part up to the Universe.

Meditating

When I meditate I first quiet my mind and stay in the present by counting my breaths, one for the in-breath and two for the out-breath, over and over. I then shift my focus to the feeling and healing power of God’s love. In each case my brain spends eighty to ninety percent of the time wandering about from one topic to another. I would like to be present and focused more of the time but I am not. I have been working on my meditating for many years and this is what I have achieved. It is worth noting that this level is enough to have succeeded in doing many things. Time to meditate!

Beaming

During my meditation and sacred ceremonies I have been shown and experienced first-hand the simplicity, power and purity of God’s love, quite a gift. My mission is to pass that on, and change the world in doing so. I have passed it on to many spirits and living individuals with remarkable results. I call the process "beaming" and I must confess that I don’t really know how I do it but I feel it as do the recipients. I do know the ability is a gift. The most recent time I used beaming was today at a recovery meeting with the boisterous individual I mentioned a couple of days ago. We shall see what the impact is, as I do it more.

Listening

Today, after the Friend’s silent worship meeting, I spent some time connecting and talking with a woman attendee about various family and relationship issues, very meaningful and enjoyable. It was a very good conversation and she expressed several times how nice it was to talk to me. Recently, several other people have expressed the same pleasure during our talks. I don’t talk much but I listen intently, love and respect the person I am talking with. They know and can feel that. "For there to be a meeting, it seems as though a third, a something else, is always present. You may call it Love, or the Holy Spirit. Jungians would say that it is the presence of the Self. If this 'Other' is present, there cannot have failed to be a meeting." (Claremont deCastillejo)

Ego Struggles

There is a fellow present and new to some of my meetings who is very boisterous, self-centered, sure he is right, newly sober, insecure and ignorant about love and recovery. Except for the boisterous part, he is a lot like I was early in my recovery journey. I was quiet but equally obnoxious. He has a huge and very resistant ego and my own ego has a large tendency to rear its ugly, angry head and engage this guy, as others are doing in my meetings. My discernment is telling me that the only way to engage him is through unconditional love and being of service to him, when he is ready, and not to oppose him in any way if he tries to argue. My own ego feels deflated as I write this (hooray!). "Discernment is a gift from God, not as a personal achievement. The gift is not the result of training, technique, or analysis. Like other gifts of God, its origin is mysterious and gratuitous." (Patricia Loring)

Choice

During my recovery meeting today one of the participants spoke of his having experienced the simple feeling of joy for the first time. Because of my choices, I experience the glorious feeling of joy much of the time. The thought which keeps coming up in my head is that "you could be so much more [in some areas], if you would only be so much less [in others]. I experience joy when I choose to focus on the love and beauty in my life, while giving up my worldly concerns. "The appropriate language for the person receiving these favors [communion with Love/God] is that he understand them, experience them within himself, enjoy them and be silent." (St. John of the Cross)

Loving Action

On one hand loving action is very simple, sensing and doing what intuitively feels right and on the other hand it is complex in that the action may feel right but not good. For example I work with several people and feel a strong love for each of them. I often offer insights about them that they find valuable but also make them feel uncomfortable, even to the point of crying at times. There are also people I know and love but I choose not to offer my insights about them because they do not ask and out of love and respect for them and their own process. "Love has a quality you can learn to discern. It 'feels right'. It is truthful and inclusive. There is no objective measurement to confirm that you are experiencing love. You can only trust your intuition and do your best. If you do, your capacity to discern love will grow. We are all learning this skill." (Shepherd Hoodwin)

Dealing With Life

I have been dealing with a lot of family and financial matters for these last few days, material matters very much tied to this world. However, I did not get lost or absorbed by those matters since I also continued my spiritual practices. I am grateful that I have been able to continue with my spiritual growth in the midst of worldly things. "It [evolution to higher levels] is not now the result of an escalator coming up from below. It depends on us, and persons like us, whether we go on to further goals or not. The possibilities are in us, there is no compulsion. We can sag down to the level of animal life, or we can climb an inward Jacob’s Ladder and become rightly fashioned by spirits, kindled by a flame from above..... We have the possibility of becoming superbiological. (Rufus Jones)