We must come to terms

We must come to terms with this simple truth or forever be bonded to a hell of ‘our own’ making.

This whole problem … in all its many facets, twists and turns … seems to be embedded in the deeper and sometimes darker recesses of the mind … of the soul … It seems that both the problem and the solution are neighbours … they live nearly side by side.

The next part of the problem seems to be that these deeply embedded signposts or puzzle parts can only be revealed in the here and now … and they do so as coded symbols … somehow I was supposed to be able to read them and gleaning meaning from them before I moved on to whatever is next … but I could only move on if I could understand and integrate into my life what the inscriptions on the signposts said … It is something like reading the street signs in Moscow … there are lots of them … my problem was I never had been introduced to the proper alphabet to be able to read them …  thus my frustration lay in seeing the answers in plain sight … I  … having no idea how to interpret them or … quite simply … what the sign said.

Oh I could guess at it … but …  and many did … and many purported to know the secrets of the signs … but the truth of the matter was … everyone I ever met was in the same boat as me … they had never studied the proper alphabet either and were only guessing.  Most of what we think we need to do is only our best guess at what should happen … coupled with a little faith that what we just did was the right thing to do.

Then aspects of my humanity began to kick in … parts and places in me that I would never have guessed were a part of me … stirred … I began to learn how to trust my intuition … not an easy bicycle to learn how to ride …

I learned to listen to God’s voice as it spoke to me … I noticed that it spoke through my daily comings and goings

Discovery Made:

I discovered God paints metaphors on life to describe life to the observer … to give clues to and about the signposts … it was then that I began to notice and observe clues to the meanings of the signposts … slowly … I began to notice what it was that those signs might be saying … might … is the keyword here.

At first, I thought silly little things like God could help me find parking spots … or pick winning lottery tickets … or supply answers for the unanswerable … or provide insights to wondrous considerations.  That did not happen.  And I was disappointed … but that is life … I began to see simple things, that when added together with other simple things … became incredibly complex things that inter-depended on each other … co-existed …  co created … it was fascinating.  Just like all of us scurrying running round on the face of this planet … lost in our own particular beliefs about the whys and hereto fore’s of being here in the first place … each unaware that they are contributing to something far larger then they could possibly imagine. I wondered often … me depending on me and my special/non special concept …  that the concept I depended upon for defining the world for me … was it my special friend (?) … Could I keep it cooped up in the closet of my mind … used only on special occasions … when I felt that I needed some special reassurance that I was in fact special in someone’s eyes because I sure as hell was not special in my own? So, for a period of time, my understanding of God had to hide behind a wall or be cooped up in some closeted space … I restricted Him to only muttering clues about life to me … occasionally about life … those were my rules … not His

So what do we have here? This became a very spiritual question for me … then I noticed … here I was back to me depending on my concept of the universe and how things should be and in all probability not even being remotely connected to the Way Of Things … 

I also discovered in this process that I was very angry with God for dropping me off in this God forsaken place … my opinion again … for not always making me feel special and most importantly … not giving me the answers that I wanted … when I wanted them … it took me a long time to notice that He was giving me the answers:

… They Were Just Not The Ones I Wanted To See …

We must come to terms with this simple truth or forever be bonded to a hell of ‘our own’ making.

This whole problem … in all its many facets, twists and turns … seems to be embedded in the deeper and sometimes darker recesses of the mind … of the soul … It seems that both the problem and the solution are neighbours … they live nearly side by side.

The next part of the problem seems to be that these deeply embedded signposts or puzzle parts can only be revealed in the here and now … and they do so as coded symbols … somehow I was supposed to be able to read them and gleaning meaning from them before I moved on to whatever is next … but I could only move on if I could understand and integrate into my life what the inscriptions on the signposts said … It is something like reading the street signs in Moscow … there are lots of them … my problem was I never had been introduced to the proper alphabet to be able to read them …  thus my frustration lay in seeing the answers in plain sight … I  … having no idea how to interpret them or … quite simply … what the sign said.

Oh I could guess at it … but …  and many did … and many purported to know the secrets of the signs … but the truth of the matter was … everyone I ever met was in the same boat as me … they had never studied the proper alphabet either and were only guessing.  Most of what we think we need to do is only our best guess at what should happen … coupled with a little faith that what we just did was the right thing to do.

Then aspects of my humanity began to kick in … parts and places in me that I would never have guessed were a part of me … stirred … I began to learn how to trust my intuition … not an easy bicycle to learn how to ride …

I learned to listen to God’s voice as it spoke to me … I noticed that it spoke through my daily comings and goings

Discovery Made:

I discovered God paints metaphors on life to describe life to the observer … to give clues to and about the signposts … it was then that I began to notice and observe clues to the meanings of the signposts … slowly … I began to notice what it was that those signs might be saying … might … is the keyword here.

At first, I thought silly little things like God could help me find parking spots … or pick winning lottery tickets … or supply answers for the unanswerable … or provide insights to wondrous considerations.  That did not happen.  And I was disappointed … but that is life … I began to see simple things, that when added together with other simple things … became incredibly complex things that inter-depended on each other … co-existed …  co created … it was fascinating.  Just like all of us scurrying running round on the face of this planet … lost in our own particular beliefs about the whys and hereto fore’s of being here in the first place … each unaware that they are contributing to something far larger then they could possibly imagine. I wondered often … me depending on me and my special/non special concept …  that the concept I depended upon for defining the world for me … was it my special friend (?) … Could I keep it cooped up in the closet of my mind … used only on special occasions … when I felt that I needed some special reassurance that I was in fact special in someone’s eyes because I sure as hell was not special in my own? So, for a period of time, my understanding of God had to hide behind a wall or be cooped up in some closeted space … I restricted Him to only muttering clues about life to me … occasionally about life … those were my rules … not His

So what do we have here? This became a very spiritual question for me … then I noticed … here I was back to me depending on my concept of the universe and how things should be and in all probability not even being remotely connected to the Way Of Things … 

I also discovered in this process that I was very angry with God for dropping me off in this God forsaken place … my opinion again … for not always making me feel special and most importantly … not giving me the answers that I wanted … when I wanted them … it took me a long time to notice that he was giving me the answers:

… They Were Just Not The Ones I Wanted To See …

And Maybe Understanding for the First Time

EXPERIENCE has taught us that[1] as we begin to come from a place of deeper understanding, from a place of connection with a Higher Power or with the Way of Things, we may begin to notice that there are several truths quietly at work in our lives.

Second: there is a thought that seems almost inconspicuous in all this, yet it is probably one of the more important principles in recovery.  It also has a Catch 22 quality to it: what we believe is what we will experience, and healing takes place only in our minds, although it seems to manifest itself in other places as other things outside ourselves.  When we remove ourselves from a dilemma without resolving it to the soul’s satisfaction, and thereby avoiding the healing process contained in the resolution of that dilemma, we are not allowing the spiritual forces to prevail.  What we are doing is simply mood altering, and that is avoidance.  So the need for the process to take place will follow us around like a lost puppy dog from situation to situation.  The circumstances will be recreated again and again as the soul attempts to have us resolve these deeper conflicts it perceives as needing completion.

This seems to be The Way of Things.

I think my life is a puzzle … not a chess game as I once thought … but … simply a puzzle.

And I have to wonder aloud at times “Are there pieces missing?” … “Is this the Stattler Brother’s Deck of 51[2]?”

Thus far in my experience … if I were being honest about things … I have noticed that this puzzle is only partially completed … there really is not enough of it put together yet to really recognize what the message or the picture is … oh I can make out form … and a few things that leads me to believe that I understand … but I suspect that is my ego at work appearing to do something for me that is really beyond me for the moment.

I can’t seem to comprehend it completely … oh I can grasp the idea … I think … but the over all message seems to slide right past me.

Now it seems to be that if I can just get a few of these unfit pieces into someplace in the puzzle … actually at this point anyplace is fine with me … then my life will finally work for me the way I want it too … Round Pegs, Square Holes, Larger Mallets.

Then something that I notice begins to bother me to no end … as I begin to notice what the puzzle is saying to me … the puzzle changes … right there before my eyes … it changes and I am back to not understanding … yet again …

“Is this Eternity?”

And

“Am I rolling rocks up hill for ever?”

As I look back on my life’s journey … from age 65 … try it from where ever you are … have a look and write down what you see … I can honestly say that no matter how hard I strived to get to a place called “Having Everything The Way I Wanted It,” I never made it. 

On the other hand, I have noticed that during the course of doing life that Everything Is Exactly The Way It Is Supposed To Be but … and this is the big one … Most Of It Does Not Agree With Me … but of course who said it was supposed too … besides me.

So again I have to wonder aloud “is it as important that I complete the journey … my way … get my prize … the one that I think I deserve … or is it more important that I simply begin to do the journey and allow it to unfold before me … and for me to simply do what is next … as it appears before me … is that it?”

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[1] Taken from Experience Has Taught Us – 175 Missing Pieces … number 66 … published by Bright Star Press … Neil Douglas – Tubb

[2] Counting Flowers On the Wall …  …  Stattler Bros Artist 1966 … RCA recording … 1966 

So I Stand At A Junction In My Mind

3

 So here I stand at a junction in my mind with my soul in hand, or so it seems. Many confusing and contradictory messages seem to be presenting themselves and I feel confused. Now through this fog of imagery there is an attraction to one particular way. It is not marked by anything in particular, and actually it feels just a little scary to even consider going down that road but there is a sense of something, a way of doing things that is definitely different.  If peace and good order have a smell about them, then it is here.

I look to my left and see many other opportunities I could venture into, some very familiar. Heck, I could walk through some of them with my eyes shut. 

In fact, I see many of the old gang beckoning to me to join them in the old ways.  I feel my heartstrings being tugged on this one. As I look down this old and familiar road I can see pain and despair hiding in the ditches just waiting to jump out at me.  I see me depending on me, and my “magic friends” to gain relief from a world I considered a very dangerous place. A place I thought would destroy me. I now know that the relief I will feel is only temporary.  

As I see my old friends I have to ask myself who is my friend and who is my enemy, really?  Who wears false faces today? I notice my life is littered with the castoffs of my efforts to avoid my legitimate hurt and pain. 

I want ‘different’. That path way to the unfamiliar looks different.  I notice others up ahead.  They seem to be walking with a spring in their step; they seem to be walking toward a place called ‘different’.  They are whom I want to join.  We all carry heavy packsacks, and some of us have yokes about our necks too but I notice that their steps are light and the look upon their faces is peaceful.

A Sense Of Renewal Comes Upon Me.

The old gang raises hell and bangs their pots and pans.  They really don’t want me to go.  They shout promises and falsehoods and even try bribery, offering all sorts of freedom and wonderful experiences if only I would stay. 

It is tempting but I don’t hear the ring of quality in their voices, I remember what I have learned, in fact if I am honest with me I have to notice that the ring of quality was never really there with the old and familiar way.  I choose the road of unfamiliar and different.

Those who greet me have gone on before.  The warmth and presence deep within grows fuller and richer and more defined.  Gratitude becomes my experience not my lip service.  I am not alone.  I experience the presence of my Higher Power acting with me as I go through my day, as I walk upon my path.

Experience Has Taught Me

That there is a power greater than me,

And

I can have it in my life

But

Only if I ask

And

Only if I surrender into it with all its manifestations,

Then it will heal everything in my life that needs to be healed, including me.