The Big Finish

 After the Zoom meeting this morning my friend Suburban Bill stayed around for twenty minutes or so and talked with SuperK and me, mostly about her two brothers who have been recently diagnosed with incurable cancers.  I kept quiet because I thought it was great that SuperK could get a different viewpoint on what was going on from a disinterested third party.  Not that she doesn't value my support and counsel but I bring my own biases and history to the discussion and it's always helpful to seek advice from lots of different people, especially on topics that are new to us.

I include a lot of friends in my morning Quiet Time when I cycle through my Gratitude List.  Suburban and I are people who approach life in a similar way -  we aren't especially social but we're both especially charming, caring about others intensely and deeply, but in short bursts.  I'm not sure we give ourselves enough credit for this character trait but we sure enjoy tearing each other up over our weaknesses, something we do it in good humor and with no doubt that the shit being heaped is done with the greatest affection.  He talks about how much he cares about the people in the churches he calls on, so much so that he doesn't take advantage - monetary advantage - when they allow him to just fill out order sheets with whatever he suggests.

"Man, I could make more money if I padded those orders," he told me once.

Not worth it.  Not worth the nagging sense of shame that a little more money would bring him.  He talked about a story in the Bible where Jeebus, facing an agonizing crucifixion and then death, tried to weasel his way out of the tribulations before defaulting to the famous AA addendum: "If it be thy will."  That helped my wife deal with the fact that she's trying to weasel a better outcome for her brothers.

"I think that's pretty natural," quoth Bill.

"Service, gladly rendered obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God's help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God's sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God's scheme of things - these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes."  12&12 P 124.