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DonInLondon January 10 2008



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January 10 2008 DonInLondon - ‘Day In the Life’

Anvils Of Experience

Somewhere in the reading of the twelve traditions and twelve steps of AA the phrase Anvils of Experience is used. Hammering out the traditions which help AA stick together took many years of trial and error. In the end the fellowship of AA with the benefit of the Anvils of Experience continues to help keep a number of alcoholics in recovery.

Experiences Today

I went to the lunchtime meeting of AA at Eaton Sq. And it was my turn to be asked at the door to do the ‘chair’ which felt right to say yes to. I guess in my experience being asked to do a chair anywhere is a privilege and most often I say yes. Unless of course I am not up to doing the chair. As a person with various ailments which are made worse by stress or just plain difficult when other physical problems manifest, I am apt to say yes to most anything these days.

Balance

There does need to be a balance. As a result of Today, another request to do a chair tomorrow. And another yes from me. At a place I have never been to actually. And not surprising as there are seven hundred AA meetings or thereabouts in London every week.

Big Deal or Just What We Do

It is a big deal to speak to others sharing our honesty and our way of living and how AA helps me keep sober. Sometimes we may wonder why we get asked regularly to chair a meeting, and its simply because there are so many.

Whatever we share has an impact. And still I remind myself that what we say needs to be considered, and still it needs to be honest.

My way into fellowship took me years, and I am no poster boy for AA over and above anyone else. In fact me writing about recovery and being out here on the internet is always going to pose questions. In truth, my truth I feel being an open book in meetings is important so people new and coming into this fellowship know they have the right to develop their sober outlook their way.

Tried and Tested on Anvils

What we know is we will eventually hear our own story from others who are in differing places in their sober living. And we learn what works for others can work for ourselves.

Problems We Face

Always there are problems of truth and honesty, and being willing to find a path of sobriety which works. I don’t have anywhere near all the answers for myself let alone others and their lives. Somehow though we learn sober living. Never having to pick up a drink again.

Just The Ticket

AA with all the people in it, well we do find we have just the ticket for most who ardently want recovery, and peace, and whatever life offers in sober days.

Ticket to Ride [ valid on day of issue]

AA and sobriety, its just one day long. For all that anyone and even me might say, it works for the day or a part of it. Whatever happens we are encouraged to keep coming back. Why? Because we all know that our sobriety is valid just for today.

Wisdom

As time passes, we share the learned wisdom of our experiences and what others have shared over and over again.

Why Do People Pray

Even though my god of my understanding is the element we all have at our disposal, that is truth and also love. Resolute in learning, never ending.

Truth and Love

We are always and forever learners as life affords about our truth and love.
Always developing and changing, there are no absolutes as mankind moves along.

For some of us reclaimed from a life set for early endings, and maladies which come more frequently to damaged people, sober helps get to where normal people live their lives. And for recovering alcoholics, always a day at a time seems to be best..

Spiritual

We all live a spiritual life. Even when we cannot understand what on earth its all about. When we show up for life, open, honest and willing as we can be, then we have a chance to live in the present moment, learning as we may, never perfect…

Or there would be no point to life at all for us humans.




January 10th 2007

Spiritual Progress

Seems to be another theme running along in my life. Don’t get turned off by the notion that Spiritual is about God. God may have a place in the Universe or even have created the Universe, its all a bit beyond my experience so far.

From early times in my life the manifestation of God has been about. I am C of E, Church of England which means little or nothing to me these days. Except in the olden days Catholics were to be seen as less than C of E. I am sure and with a lot of firm belief, Catholics rightly believe in their faith and destiny as laid down by scriptures.

All the religions of the world have a thing about spiritual and God.

Actually these days my spiritual path is more easily understood by me. Spiritual is simply living in the moment. Having had some fifty years of being alive, we do get a sense of what our outlook is and where we are with Spiritual and God.

Spiritual Progress

I make some spiritual progress daily, its about now and making the now of my life work. Its about making use of my wisdom however small or big it might be about making life work and doing the next right thing.

Perfection

Yes I wanted to be a perfect person back then when I was small, because I was told it was best to be good and being good works best. I had standards I never seemed to be able to achieve and I never quite felt comfortable. A person uncomfortable being themselves means we act and pretend and have much denial about what is real and in this moment of now.

Imagination

Plays tricks on our reality, as we make big of our past or small of our past. We forget we use experiences to shape our way of living today. And of course we dream of futures beyond the present.

Beyond my Wildest Dreams?

Right now being alive at all is beyond my wildest dreams as for many like me, we are alive because of science and not belief. Or maybe a bit of both. Dreams and history, we make them our best recollections and imaginings for ourselves when life is full of pain.

Real right now

Being real right now without denials and filters like drink and drugs means I stand a better chance of making good this moment. When we learn that spiritual is the good, the bad, the in between, however it manifests in truth is the barometer of our spiritual development.

So easy to forget reality and so easy to hark back to good old times, we forget pain often as if it were never there, unless the pain is as real as now.

Avoidance

We humans avoid at all costs some pains we need experience to understand the depth and redolence of our living, sometimes it smells right, or strongly to the contrary, we get our sense of what we have from reality. And then we make it as we wish as imagination and our will desires.

Love and Hate

The great big emotions we humans experience and every hue in between across all the repertoire of living. Is it any wonder we would make life seem different when it does not live up to our desires, or for us to bend our perceptions so we feel more in control, or less as we need to be liberated from the ordeal of living.

We humans enjoy bigging life up, so it seems more than it is as the grind of life, the true spiritual path takes some decades to comprehend!

Time

Yes time we need it to get it, and sometimes we are in a hurry to speed up what we might miss.

Burnout is not far behind many of us who have burned our candle at both ends. We need to regroup and take stock and get to living life in the moment as best we can to make it really work.

Patience over speed, to dig and delve and know this life we need to be present in it. We need not hurry spiritual as the patience we learn enables us to feel the gravitas Providence and Nature afford. As to where God features, most likely in the making

Powerless

As we learn in our fellowship we are powerless over people places and things. We can change just ourselves and outlook a day at a time, if we keep to the spiritual path of living in this moment without blinkers!

Maybe as I mentioned before, God made man, man made God. Both equally powerless over the other? We may find out one day, not in this life as we may be judged a day at a time and how we lived our days…

Overall

Today has been a lesson learning to hold to my values of courage and faith in human kind. I know without doubt most people I know and in the fellowship of friends I have, the issue of doing the next right things is clear. As to some who cannot see this, its not my job to illuminate or make life harder.

I am learning again to make sure I know what I commit my time and energy and experience to doing.

My spiritual path has shown me the good of people over recent days and the worst of people over recent days.

If I had lived in Iraq all my life in one sect or another, would I have the same outlook? Not really, but in essence wherever we are we make choices to our spiritual and emotional well being. Surely we learn the difference to the good as we go? Not always for having come through a patch of life which altered everything I might have held dear, only one element is left, that is me.

And in truth I am relieved of much pain in recent times so I have been able to be able to do the next right thing. And that is not to isolate and fret, it is to have courage and be open, its about getting wisdom by living in this present moment.

Today has been good, and yet its never quite what I might have visualised for me. And the good news is life is working to an extent, and imaginings are where they belong, smiles here as life is never quite as we might endeavour. Yet life is worth the endeavour today. Sometimes outlooks change and as my outlook is not from will but from hard endeavour, I am on a spiritual path.

Love, hate, bravery, courage and all the polarities we can experience and feel make the pattern of our spiritual condition. So live life as life is, real and as can be. Happenstance and serendipity do make us what we are, choices we have make our difference. Better to have wisdom from many who we trust than wisdom singular and often misguided we have picked along the way.

Tonight is quiet and I am circumspect about recent events, and so I live learn and get on a day at a time. Hard work, as life is, we get our rewards in the journey, the destination is inevitable..

January 10th 2006

Serenity

Our serenity is based on taking responsibility and being accountable, letting go and moving on.

This version of a thought for today has been amended to suit me. The thought originally contained references to blame and giving up. Serenity is not a state of grace, and not some palliative. Serenity is a state of mind we find when we do understand our relationships and agreements with our world.

Serenity is not a state of being which is maintained throughout life with constants which never change. Serenity is achieved in the here and now, we cannot assume it or will it. Serenity is peace in this experience and moment of now.

Serenity is a state achieved by anyone finding their relationship with the world in balance with their temperament and the temperament of all connective elements.

Others serenity can be a fucking pain! Especially sanctimonious serenity, piety and sanctimony.

Acceptance is the key!

January 10th 2005

Fickle In Life

Marked by lack of steadfastness, constancy, or stability : given to erratic changeableness. In life, often we are fickle, touched by insecurity, sometimes surface, sometimes deep we cannot fathom where this fickle nature may have root.

We have deep instincts to self preservation and we have learned responses from birth. Our fickle nature resides within, holding us to the familiar, saving us from harm. Yet when fickle takes over, we are immersed as if our toes just touch an ocean deep. Fickle keeps us from our richness within and traumatised by the most fleeting touch of reality.

We may demonstrate how fickle we are to others when we don't hold them with esteem, for ours is so shattered we cannot find our own self worth.

How many lovers, friends do we lose as the deep within remains untouched? Our lightness and superficial wanderings keep tight our grip and fear. Our self, the inner loving one remains desperate as our fickle nature covers up.

Attest with mendacity as fickle breath is shallow, and testament to pain manifests in our ghostly glow.

Put down a tap root to knowing yourself one day soon and authenticate how much there is to learn. It takes great courage to let go whim and clever intellect, and nourish our soul without wit or rapier, that double edged cleverness of knowledge and application.

Encourage experience to dull the pain of loneliness, and become enriched with living moments and dull the edge of daggers intellect.

The grime of living, gnarled wonderment abounds as we let in the tide of humanity...

-/-




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Be Tolerant

You have the power to tolerate anyone and any situation. But tolerance is not just suffering in silence.

It means going beyond any personal discomfort you may feel, and giving a gift to whom ever you would tolerate. Give your time, attention, understanding, compassion, care - all are gifts, which paradoxically, you also receive in the process of giving.

And, as you do, you will experience your own self esteem and inner strength grow. In this way you can turn tolerance into strength.






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Ghandi

There come to us moments in life when about some things we need no proof from without. A little voice within us tells us, 'You are on the right track, move neither to your left nor right, but keep to the straight and narrow way.

A person falsely claiming to act under divine inspiration or the promptings of the inner voice without having any such, will fare worse than the one falsely claiming to act under the authority of an earthly sovereign. Whereas the latter on being exposed will escape with injury to his body, the former may perish body and soul together.

You have to believe no one but yourselves. You must try to listen to the inner voice, but if you will not have the expression"inner voice", you may use the expression "dictates of reason", which you should obey, and if you will not parade God, I have no doubt you will parade something else which in the end will prove to be God, for, fortunately, there is no one and nothing else but God in this universe.

For me truth is the sovereign principle, which includes numerous other principles. This truth is not only truthfulness in word, but truthfulness in thought also, and not only the relative truth of our conception, but the Absolute Truth, the Eternal Principle, that is God. There are innumerable definitions of God, because His manifestations are innumerable. They overwhelm me with wonder and awe and for a moment stun me.




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Ghandi

There come to us moments in life when about some things we need no proof from without. A little voice within us tells us, 'You are on the right track, move neither to your left nor right, but keep to the straight and narrow way.

A person falsely claiming to act under divine inspiration or the promptings of the inner voice without having any such, will fare worse than the one falsely claiming to act under the authority of an earthly sovereign. Whereas the latter on being exposed will escape with injury to his body, the former may perish body and soul together.

You have to believe no one but yourselves. You must try to listen to the inner voice, but if you will not have the expression"inner voice", you may use the expression "dictates of reason", which you should obey, and if you will not parade God, I have no doubt you will parade something else which in the end will prove to be God, for, fortunately, there is no one and nothing else but God in this universe.

For me truth is the sovereign principle, which includes numerous other principles. This truth is not only truthfulness in word, but truthfulness in thought also, and not only the relative truth of our conception, but the Absolute Truth, the Eternal Principle, that is God. There are innumerable definitions of God, because His manifestations are innumerable. They overwhelm me with wonder and awe and for a moment stun me.










DonInLondon
Day In the Life



Email Me Here

Don In London
Not For Profit
Progress Not Perfection


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