That's It

For many years of my sobriety I've placed a huge premium on regular contacts with other A.A. members outside of the meeting rooms.  Some times in person, for coffee or a walk or somesuch, but often on the phone.  I believe that this is a great way to start to forge the deep friendships that are going to sustain us through our lives.  We're able to be more personal, explore problems and situations where the content isn't appropriate in meetings or to vent about someone who is annoying us - yes, it happens to me and it's going to happen to you - to get the annoyance out there and off our chests.  I've also learned that some people don't particularly like to talk on the phone - maybe they don't want to talk to me, particularly, understandable - or they have very full lives that take up much of their time.  I have some friends that I talk to regularly and then there are some that I call only infrequently, aware that they may or may not call back.  This used to offend me.  I'm an ex-salesman, after all, so being ignored on the phone is not my favorite thing in the world.  People wiser than me would just stop calling these folks regularly, something I have started to do over the last few years, resisting the impulse until then because I like to be annoyed, apparently.  If someone makes you unhappy or unspiritual, quit doing it right?  Brilliant!

Today I can call these people on occasion because I no longer demand a response that's to MY liking.  The other day I called a friend who shares my love for a particular kind of art because I visited an exhibit that I thought he would find interesting.  Crickets.  Radio silence.  The same day I put in a call to my sister.  I love my sister and we get along fine but we're not close.  We've never been close.  She did not return the call.  I'm okay with both of these instances.  I get it.  I can be an arrogant, dismissive, distracted asshole sometimes so it's possible that this behavior is so off-putting that they figure their time can best be spent elsewhere.  It's OK.  I don't really care.  I'm not mad, anymore

Several years ago I had the opportunity to talk to my sponsor of twenty-five years every day as he was heavily medicated to combat the pain of advancing cancer.  I was struck with the impression that he had one foot on earth and one foot in heaven.  He commented one day that he had come to believe that the nature of God was simply pure love.  That really stuck with me.  No judgment, no disapproval, just love.  So today I try to make my life all about taking that pure love that is the manifestation of my higher power and channeling it into the world.  

That's it.  That's what I'm trying to do.

His Holiness, Walmart SuperCenter

Several years ago SuperK and I visited Kyoto, Japan, sort of a Walmart SupeCenter of Buddhist teaching, thought, and history.  We talked to a local who advised us to steer clear of the temple complexes that were the most popular - and most crowded - and to visit a few of second tier places.  It was great advice.  We stumbled into one temple where we were almost alone.  We started to walk through, pausing at a really beautiful Zen garden.  I don't know shit about Zen gardens.  I find them very calming, very centering, even though I never knew why.  As we stood there one of the volunteers or employees or students came over and asked if she could help.  Her English wasn't great but it was a lot better than our Japanese.  She explained what the different areas of the garden represented in a way that opened our eyes to a different level of beauty and understanding of what we were seeing.  It wasn't just someone tossing a couple of stones and plants in an area and then dumping sand on it, raking it around in a vague and indeterminate manner.  This woman then accompanied us through the different areas of the temple.  She would talk a little, then stand with us, patiently, until we wanted to move on.  She was very calming, very centering.

After we completed our circuit she waved off any tip and melted into the background.  In the lobby there was a Japanese Buddhist monk sitting behind some rickety looking tables which were covered with books about - I must assume - Buddhism.  They were in Japanese, a language way at the top of all of the languages I don't understand.  Those letters are purely hallucinogenic.  I don't even think people who can read Japanese can read that stuff.  This older monk - right out of central casting with the shaved head and orange robe and sandaled feet - smiled at us as we lingered and said: "I think that right now you are the happiest couple in the world."

My bullshit alarm went off stridently.  I'm a cynical Westerner who just assumed that this man who lives a spartan life in a spartan building was trying to hustle me for a couple of pamphlets.  We took a few minutes to chat with him about nothing that I can remember and I bought a little Japanese-looking booklet which he then opened up to jot down some hieroglyphics on the inside cover.  

That book is now filled with quotations and comments and thoughts that have accumulated over the years and it's sitting on the corner of my desk, a place of honor in the Seaweed Desk Hierarchy.  Today, I don't think that crafty monk was bullshitting us.  I think he dialed in to the good energy that was wafting off of us after that amazing, inspirational tour we had just finished.

I'm assuming he wrote something kind in Japanese in my book.  But I would enjoy it even more if he written down something like "another piece of shit booklet made in China sold to another guillable asshole American. "  That would be, like, really great.

Tradition Ten in Real Life

I was handed the book used by the meeting leader to talk for a minute and suggest a topic this morning.  I'm OK with that.  I like to talk and I really like to talk about myself and I love pushing the boundaries with my behavior and my speech just right up to the edge of what's appropriate in a meeting.  I'm not sure that everyone is happy that I do this but it amuses me and amusing myself has been my full-time job for quite some time now.

As I turned to accept the book saw a woman wearing a distinctive cap advertising a polarizing political figure.  It isn't written in black and white what my duty is or what responsibility I have to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.  It isn't specifically spelled out anywhere in the literature.  I do know that Tradition Ten tells us to keep politics, movements, philosophies, religion and any controversial societal issues out of our groups.  "Outside Issues," Bill and Bob called them.  As I understand it there were a number of controversies that threatened to tear The Fellowship apart in the early days and the Traditions were born out of this chaos.  They aren't there just to complicate things.

I walked across the room and mentioned this to Tom, one of the other long-timers who attends the meeting regularly because I was not going to let this pass.  I hope that those of us who are the trusted carriers of the principles of A.A. can juggle the responsibility of helping keep a group free of controversy while acting in a kind and gentle manner.  I know this woman.  She's sober six months, she has a lot going on in her personal life, she's a very nice person, and I can say this with foreknowledge of her political views which, it goes without saying, are repellant to me.  But, really, it was any political clothing that I objected to.  Most of us have trouble getting sober in a bland and anodyne environment.  Can you imagine how many people would turn around and walk right back out of The Rooms if, at their first meeting, everyone showed up in T-shirts advertising a political candidate that one didn't like?

I said to Tom: "Are you going to say something or should I?"

A well-established female member overheard us and offered to help.  She went to the cap lady and spoke with her privately.  I could see the conversation was going well, so I relaxed.  I'm grateful for the intervention of my A.A. sister because I think the message was probably better received coming from a woman than a forceful male blowhard like me.

At one point I called on cap lady to imply: "No hard feelings, right?"  She apologized.  I'm friends with cap lady so I texted with her a bit this morning to make sure she understood the intent behind our actions.  I think she's cool with it.  I'm not obsessed with whether or not she's cool with it.  Groups can do whatever they want as long as it doesn't affect A.A. as a whole and I know when I was getting started I was trying my damnedest to stay sober, not pick up the intricacies of The Fellowship as a whole.

Rampaging Seaweed

 I'm pretty sure that Bill and Dr Bob were quite familiar with the behavior of alcoholics by the time the Twelve and Twelve was written because they have a tendency to say the same things over and over.  A lot of the time they don't even bother trying to hide the fact that they're repeating themselves.  I think they had figured out that, as a group, we're resistant to change so we ignore anything that asks to do anything difficult.

For example, in Step Four a lot of time is spent discussing our normal instincts for sex, money, and prestige or power.  On the first page there's this: "Powerfully, blindly, many times subtly, they drive us, dominate us, and insist upon ruling our lives.  When thus out of joint, man's natural desires cause him great trouble, practically all the trouble there is."   

OK, that's a lot of trouble.  "All the trouble there is" is a lot of trouble.  It's all of it.  There's almost no trouble left over to get into.

Here're the parts that make me laugh each time I read them.  Try this phrase and expressions and qualifiers on for size, see if they fit you: "collision of instincts," "instinct run wild," "instincts on rampage balk at investigation," "the instincts have turned into physical and mental liabilities," and "every time an individual imposes his instincts unreasonably on others, unhappiness follows."  All that comes in the course of two pages.  I believe the expression that applies here is "Hammering your point home."  Over and over we're told that our inherent and important instincts are out of control.

Rampage: Rush around in a violent and uncontrollable manner.

Whew.

Talk, Talk, Talk

Talking too much?  You either know you are or you're deluding yourself.  Most people like to talk a LOT more than they like to listen.  Listening means paying attention to what someone else is saying and what someone else is saying is rarely interesting if you're spending all your mental energy thinking what you're going to say next, probably.  

"Our tendency is to think that no one understands unless we spell things out for them.  It is hard to keep our mouths shut when we want to say something so much.  Silence can be as unkind as saying too much but in the long run it serves a better purpose in preserving friendships, but it is a person of rare sensitivity who knows when the time is.  These special people seldom bother with a lot of talk - but their quiet companionship is balm to the spirit and enough without words.  Wherever we are on the pathway one of these special persons has known loneliness, felt the solitary hours, heard the empty echoes, and is there to mark the way for us  We are assured of company, told that we will make it - that we are almost there now.  Suddenly there is a corner to turn, a light to shine, hope and a hand to support us.  Then, in quiet communication, we reach back and take someone else's hand."

I mean, c'mon, this is the essence of the part of the Twelfth Step that talks about our responsibility, our duty, our obligation,  

    

We Are Well

 "There are questions we can ask ourselves to help us escape a situation that we find vexing.  Just focusing outside of a limited perspective helps us to see ourselves delivered and well.  We must see it by using the same what-if that is so easy for us in negative ways.  We need to use all our mental  and spiritual resources to see ourselves free.  It is never that we are sick and trying to get well - but that  we are well and something is trying to make us sick." 

Many people spend a ton of time focusing on the negative.  I know I do.  And I've come to understand that an awareness of potential dangers and problems can be a very effective survival technique.  People that never worry have a tendency to walk into running buzz saws.  But I also believe that we can get into the habit of worrying too much about unimportant things or imagining terrible disasters involving the important things in our lives that are not likely to happen.  So the next time you hear an emergency siren maybe not imagine that it's an ambulance rushing a dying loved one to the hospital.  The chances of that being the case are vanishingly small.  Worrying about  them is not productive.

Mark Twain

Cherokees again: "There is a time to speak and a time to keep silent, but it takes wisdom to know the time.  Most things can only stand one telling and it had better be where it stands a chance to survive. Until that time, don't talk.  Feelings are so easily manipulated they can't be trusted as a measure in anything.  We stay with bad habits because it feels right.  The habit comforts our feeli ngs and the  familiar touch makes us believe we can't give it up.  Beware of feelings that deceive."

When I was drinking I had this persistently terrible habit of talking when I should have kept my mouth shut and remaining silent when I needed to say something.  My instincts were as bad as they could get.  I made people cringe.  I made people ask: "Why didn't you say something?"  I was charging ahead or hanging back, almost always inappropriately.  

As a joke sometimes I'll grab a member around the shoulders when they're leaving the meeting, lean in closely, and say in a conspiratorial air: "Do me favor - try not to talk today."  It's not bad advice, actually.  If I don't talk I don't get into trouble.

In my morning Quiet Time I repeat our beloved Serenity Prayer, actually trying to pay attention to the meaning behind the words instead of repeating them in a robotic manner, and then I paraphrase it in a way that makes more practical sense to me: "If I'm suppoused to do something, help me do it; if I'm not suppoused to do anything, help me wait patiently, and show me which is which."  Often I'll ponder a real world circumstance, one where I think I need to do something, and ask for an intuitive thought if and when I'm supposed to actually do something, which isn't very much of the time.  Usually my intuitive thought is to keep my fucking mouth closed.

"Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt."