Here Comes the Angel of Death

"It is when we try to make our will conform with God's that we begin to use it rightly.  Our whole trouble had been the misuse of willpower.  We had sought to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God's intention for us. "

12 & 12 p. 40

There's a game run by a demented P.E. teacher in a Simpson's episode called Bombardment.  Whenever he feels particularly vindictive he yells "Bombardment!" and starts flinging balls into the faces of little children, destroying teeth and noses in the process.  He's a big, fit guy so he does some real damage.  I know of a politician who does a thing he calls "The Weave" where instead of answering a question he just barfs out, rapid-fire-like, dozens of contradictory and inflammatory and irrelevant facts or lies so that the questioner is left gaping and gawking.  This is a technique in formal debate - bury the competition with so many points they find it impossible to respond coherently to all of them.  They freeze and panic and whatever point you are trying to make is lost in the wheels of confusion.  This was me when I was spiritually unfit - I threw shit against the wall to see what would stick but nothing would ever stick and I usually couldn't get off the couch, in my brain fog, to actually throw the shit so what I was left with were some buckets of shit in my living room.  I couldn't even be bothered to flush the shit down the toilet.  The shit did me no good whatsoever.  Maybe this is why I had very few visitors.   Maybe the buckets of unflung shit in my living room were off-putting.  

"Humans are mentally sick with a disease called fear.  If we can see our state of mind as a disease, we find there is a cure.  We must forgive those we feel have wronged us, not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because we love ourselves so much we don't want to keep paying for the injustice.  Forgiveness is the only way to heal.  You will know you have forgiven someone when you see them and you no longer have an emotional reaction.  That's the beginning of the free human.  Forgiveness is the key."

Toltecs

It is amazing to me how often the human battle with fear is mentioned in spiritual texts.  It's the fear itself that's the real problem - not the thing or situation or person provoking the fear response.  I'm going to be able to handle the scary thing.  I am not able to handle being afraid that I'm not going to be able to handle the thing I'm afraid of.  It's a riddle wrapped up in a conundrum.  It's a maze of circular logic.  It's like looking in one of those repeating fun house mirrors where you see an infinite number of Yous receding into eternity.  The only helpful thing I can do is to bust up that first mirror.  But what I do is try to break the 13th or 82nd or 133rd mirror, the mirror that is only an illusion in a diseased part of my mind.

It is also amazing to me how often the concept of forgiveness is mentioned in our spiritual texts.  The fact that forgiveness frees us comes up again and again as does the concept that when we learn to truly forgive others then we're finally able to forgive ourselves.

"We have entered the world of the Spirit.  Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness.  This is not an overnight matter.  It should continue for our lifetime."

The Big Book p. 84

The Toltecs talk openly about the Angel of Death.  They are not doing this to scare the shit out of us - "omigod I'm going to die here comes the Angel of Death!" - but to lend some perspective to today.  Here's a fact: I'm going to die and so are you so let's deal with this, put it to good use.  If I can look at this somewhat unpleasant truth and not run screaming into the night, into the fog and gloaming, then I can live in today more fully. 

"That is the way I see life, that is what the Angel of death taught me - to be completely open, to know that there is nothing to be afraid of. The Angel of Death can teach us to live every day as if it is the last day of our lives, as if there may be no tomorrow.  And of course I treat the people I love with love because this may be the last day that I can tell you how much I love you.  I don't know if I am going to see you again, so I don't want to fight with you.  So the choice today is to use every moment to be happy, to do what we really enjoyed doing.  If we only have one week to live, let's enjoy life.  Let's be alive."

I used to reject this kind of thinking as gloomy and negative but today I find that it helps me live in this moment which is - after all - the only moment that I'm giving.