Touchstone Bill

I've got a little lower back thing going on right now.  To reiterate a common theme in my life: I DO NOT like pain.  I don't see the point of my having to feel any mental, emotional, or physical discomfort.  I believe that I should be permitted to sail blithely through life pain-free.

Touchstone: A stone used to check the quality of gold alloys by rubbing them to leave a visible trace; a standard of comparison or evaluation. 

So . . . hmmm . . . that's a tough definition.  I guess that the point is to . . . hmmm . . . I don't know what the point is.  I think Bill misused the word touchstone.  I would have said pain is the price we must pay to progress spiritually.  Maybe I should send that suggestion in to our Central Office in NY to see if they want to rewrite the fucking 12&12 to my specifications.  I'm sure they'll do it.

"Someone who knew what he was talking about once remarked that pain was the touchstone of all spiritual progress."  12&12 P 93.

That would not have been me.  I would rather have a million dollars be my touchstone of all personal spiritual progress.  I promise that I'll be a good boy if you give me a million dollars.

"But if a willing start is made, then the great advantages of doing this will so quickly reveal themselves that the pain will be lessened as one obstacle after another melts away."  12&12 P 93.

OK, you better toss a Promise my way if you're going to insist that pain in my life is inevitable.

One of the ways the internet has made life easier for all of us is that whenever we have an ache or pain we can jump online and find out what horrible, incurable disease we've picked up.  Once we're sufficiently agitated, having dialed Nine - One on our phone, finger poised to hit that last One, eager to have an ambulance rush us to the hospital where a team of medical specialists can try to bring us back from the precipice, we've learned to go back and re-read the diagnosis, re-evaluate the symptoms.  We find that all is not lost.  We find we've overreacted.

I know with an injury or illness I teeter wildly between ignoring the symptoms and just powering through my day without changing my routine at all or I curl up into the fetal position, sucking my thumb, quivering with fear, certain that my situation falls into the Never-Always-Forever category.  If you break your leg don't go out for your daily run and if you have a slight twinge in your knee you're probably going to be just fine.

We talked this morning in our meeting about the Slow and Steady.  Do what's in front of you and trust in the outcome.  God's got this.  God's got a plan.  God isn't asking for suggestions.