I'm Listening . . . .

The awesome power of bouncing ideas off of another person, maybe someone you don't always agree with or with someone that you definitely disagree with.  Just listening to what someone with a different viewpoint has to say is an example of how I can practice extending grace.  It's important to have these exchanges of ideas.  Sometimes someone else has a better approach than me.  I have to remember that I thought a life of drug and alcohol use was a good - was the only solution to my angst and depression - when all it did was worsen the symptoms without addressing the root causes.  We need each other and we need our Higher Power to grow.  Talking back and forth sharpens and challenges each person's faith.

I've been edgy the last many days.  Hey, it happens.  Lean into the edgy.  Look at the edgy.  What is the lesson the edgy is trying to teach me?  My struggles occur when I try to get what I just think is the cause of the edginess into a chokehold and wrestle it to the ground, subdue the edgy.  I find my discomfort is heightened when I'm "off" somehow and don't exactly know why and, when this happens, little, minor upsets take on gigantic proportions.   I need to remember that an elephant is a mouse built to an alcoholic's specifications.  I am a certified Master Explosives Expert when it comes to taking something small and making a big explosion.

Originally the A.A. Program was built around Six Steps - not Twelve - but Bill, the Master Complicator had to double the total and I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just that Twelve is more than Six.  A lot more.  Twice as many.  Some of us occasionally simplify recovery to Three salient points:  Find God, clean house, help others.

My minister friend: "One result of the genuine bedrock Christian principle that all are welcome and all are forgivable, redeemable, is that it makes me more accepting of people who I once sneered at.  (Ed. Note: Good word, sneer is.  Sneer: A look, smile, or remark that shows scorn, contempt, or lack of respect.)  (My friend veers religious here, maybe more religious than I'm comfortable with but he's a minister for chrissake . . . )  "Christ showed me, made it ok for me to admit I'm as messed up as anybody, one of the most freeing feelings one can have .  . . not having to pretend to be so perfect or so normal, and this made me 100% more comfortable in my own skin."

How incredibly important it is to learn the skill of listening!  I had very little grasp of the concept of listening to someone else because I was so consumed with talking, with making sure I was getting my point across, I was being heard, that you understood me.  How many times have I heard a story I've heard once or twice or many times before.  Most people just want to be heard.  Most people figure things out on their own and the act of someone listening while they talk things out is all that's necessary.  I used to think they wanted my advice, they wanted me to tell them what to do, to solve their problems, this dude who needed a haircut and was obviously half-drunk and fully-high, THAT'S the dude who's got all the answers.  Sheesh.  The ego!  I have been cleaning out and organizing some old photos and occasionally I'll come across one of me where the image is so alarming I'll let out a yelp.

More Damn Grace

I think about meditation a lot.  I practice regularly.  I suck at it.  I have no idea how to do it effectively or how it's supposed to look.  And that's okay.  That is exactly what meditation is, sort of a clueless wandering awareness.  To me an apt analogy would be beginning to lift weights or to train for a marathon.  The important step is the first one - take a light weight and lift it or strap on a pair of running shoes that cost way more than is necessary for your first run.  There won't be any awareness of having taken a step toward a goal as you wheeze your way along, barely making it around the block, but without that initial gasping and choking for oxygen you sure as shit aren't going to get yourself in shape for a marathon.  I know in my personal meditation practice what has happened is that I find that I'm much calmer, much more present as I move through my day.  I'm not really aware of this calmness on a breath to breath basis but I know that life seems slower, more manageable, less alarming as the result of the meditation.  I don't jump to wild conclusions and act rashly - or as rashly, at least - as I used to.  People don't piss me off to the same degree.  When something pleasant happens I'm present enough to enjoy it and when something unpleasant happens, some pain or noxious stimuli or unwelcome encounter, I'm usually fine with it, not following it through to some wild, implausible conclusion.  "Eh, whatever" is a typical response.

Because I'm an Analogy Guy and because some of the teachers that I follow thrive on analogies, trying to give our tiny, rational minds some insight on how to approach meditation, I enjoy the imagery of little things changing while big things remain impermanent.  Sitting by a river and watching the constantly changing flow of water while noticing that the river is still a river - the water changes but the river endures.  Or watching clouds drifting across the sky, here for a moment and then gone, but the sky isn't going anywhere.  Lost in my thinking I'm drifting along through the clouds but then I burst through into the clear sky, into the sunshine, and voila! the sky is still there!  The clouds - my thoughts - are changing and intruding, as they should and they always have and they always will - but the sky - my awareness - will always be with me.

I talked to my old, dear friend yesterday - a retired banker and a retired pastor and how about the discord in that imagery? - about prayer and meditation.  It was so much fun to bounce ideas off of each other, his religious practice and my secular practice based on the non-traditional way that is Alcoholics Anonymous, and to see how much continuity there is between the two efforts, both of us, I think, striving to get to the same place, a place of love and understanding and perspective.  We talked about sweet, sweet grace and while I can get my dander ruffled a bit when I hear someone emphasize grace as a gift that an all-powerful God doles out I also listened as he emphasized how important it is to grant ourselves grace.  How many times I've listened to new people beating the shit out of themselves while trying to urge them to give their own damn self a break.

Gotta tell you that it was deeply, deeply satisfying to bounce these huge concepts off of another person - love and grace and the nature of God - not always agreeing but listening and pondering and finding many more points of agreement than of disagreement.  I'm quite taken with the imagery of water flowing down a river - the river doesn't change even though the water is constantly changing or watching clouds float by . . . the clouds move along but the sky is still there, is always there.