"Seek God early in the day, before He gets crowded out by life's problems, difficulties, or pleasures. In the early quiet time gain a calm, strong confidence in the goodness and purpose in the universe. Do not seek God only when the world's struggles prove too much and too many for you to bear or face alone."
Inertia: The property of a body that resists any change to its uniform motion; in a person, unwillingness to take action.
One of the aspects of my life that is a constant source of personal amazement/amusement is my love/hate affair with change. I don't even have to look the word up anymore: when a thing becomes another thing. It was one thing and now it's not that thing anymore - it's a different thing. Like most people change can make me fearful. Even when the situation is unpleasant or painful or even really awfully painful my tendency is to hang in there. I'm comfortable with how things are and I usually believe that if I change them that things will get worse. Maybe this is human nature.
An alcoholic doesn't merely get stuck in a rut - he furnishes the thing, takes out a second mortgage and begins to make it earthquake proof.
If you push a cart it will move forward, with only friction and gravity to slow it down. On a smooth surface it will roll for a long, long time.
I had three contacts with people from my old meeting yesterday. One was a response from a woman who blithely acts as if everything is fine - my note was only meant to reassure her that I wasn't angry with her personally, just with the circumstances. She was clueless. She bulldozed ahead with her certainty that her way of doing things is the right way and I'll be happy if she gets on board.
Two was to return a call from my sponsor who I've been avoiding because he's a breakaway meeting attendee and I just don't want to have anything whatsoever to do with those people. I tried to clearly but kindly explain why I thought what they did during the CoVid surge was a bad representation of Alcoholics Anonymous and that, by default, included him. He was very understanding of my opinions while admitting no fault of his own or willingness to change. This is as it should be - I didn't bring up the topic because I wanted or expected him to change - I brought it up because I thought he should know why he wasn't getting calls from me anymore.
Number Three - and this is the priceless one - occurred when I ran into one of the major assholes who led the breakaway group down the road to perdition, under the transparently false guise of concern for the newcomer. Even when he was attending Zoom meetings he sprinkled in anti-mask, anti-CoVid, anti-government inferences every time he spoke. He wasn't fooling anyone and he wasn't trying to. His first words - 18 months after the last time we saw each other at a grocery store - was: "So, you're still wearing a mask?" (The state has lifted all mask mandates so this isn't a totally unreasonable question.) Sometimes I think the anti-maskers equate wearing a mask for 15 minutes in a store as the equivalent of having your back broken on the rack.
I gave a mild, non-committal response: "I have two genetic blood clotting disorders" which is technically true but not why I was wearing a mask. Fuck him, right? He isn't worth getting into an argument with. I have had some time to reflect on this. I believe that in the future - if I prefer a snarky response - I'm going to go with: "Man, your powers of observation are amazing!" and if I want a more anodyne comment to say:" Why do you ask? What's it to you?"
The first two were expected responses to leading comments - I wanted to make sure these two very important people understood that I wasn't mad at them personally and to give them an insight as to why I'm behaving the way I am. Their responses were expected. The asshole guy (who is sober 35 years after not going to meetings for 20 years which to my thinking gives him 15 years of time and not the 35 he so loves to trot out) . . . well, I guess I should have expected that as well.
A rough orbital re-entry continues.
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