"If we are able to embrace new ideas and discoveries, why not new views on God? After all, we were struggling with our lives at just about every level. We truly needed help. We were having trouble with our relationships, we couldn't control our emotions, we felt miserable and depressed. We couldn't earn money or hold onto jobs, we felt useless and afraid, and we were unhappy. We couldn't even help other people. If connecting with a Higher Power could help us solve even a few of these problems,wasn't that worth exploring? Of course it was."
I have a rotating, constantly evolving and changing grouping of friends that I keep in my thoughts while I'm in my Quiet Time. I am remembering a woman whose daughter is undergoing treatment for a particularly tricky and malignant type of cancer; a man who is fighting stage four cancer himself; a man whose sister died suddenly from a heart attack; a woman who is drinking again and mostly unresponsive after accumulating seven years of sobriety; a man in the midst of a maybe long-term relationship break-up who was waffling and dithering about going through with a trip to Belgium alone instead of - as planned - with his maybe, maybe not significant other and who went after some encouragement from me; SuperK who is dealing with the slow-motion, long-term fall-out of losing a much beloved brother-in-law to cancer (Ed. Note: Don't you love the phrase "losing" to describe death? I cannot think of anyone more difficult to "lose" than a dead person. He or she is right where they were when they died unless you've moved them somewhere else); a few A.A. sons and daughters who are moving through a variety of situations and challenges that we all have gone through and are of no great import in the long run; and, of course, Detox Girl who has been quasi-responsive when Chloe and I get in touch with her but has not reached out on her own and is not to my knowledge attending any meetings or recovery groups of any kind. Eventually we all have to do some work or we're going to keep getting what we've always been getting. It can be tragic standing on the firing line of alcoholism.
"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man."
Jebediah Springfield.
