William's Burg

In 1970 I was on a job interview with my wife in a small Ohio town about thirty miles west of Akron.  After a long day of interviewing and house hunting we felt we needed some spiritual refreshment.

              “Let’s find a meeting; must be one around here somewhere.”

    We drove to the local police station. I went in and asked,

            “Where can I find an AA meeting or do you have a number I can call?

The desk sergeant gave me a once over.

            “We have a number for a local AA member.”

I called.

            “You’ll have to go down to a little burg about ten miles out in the country if

               you want one tonight.”

I paused, so he asked the obvious.

            “New in town, don’t know how to find Fredericksburg, do you?”

He gave me directions and cautioned, “be careful, bad fog setting in.”

Leaving the main highway the narrow single lane country road wound itself up, down and around the rolling hillside. With every mile the fog got thicker. About half way there the visibility was limited to a few hundred feet.

With my eyes glued to the windshield I did a double take as I caught the flicker of a bobbing red light coming up fast in front of us. I hit the brakes, regained my composure then cautiously passed the horse and buggy muttering, “What the hell is that doing out here in this fog.” In the buggy sat a bearded old man in black hat and coat with reins in hand.  

As we crested the last of the hills and began our decent into the little valley we were treated with a sight out of the past. Under the fog lay the lights of a tiny “Norman Rockwell” village.  Only the white church steeple faded out of sight into the fog.

Another surprise met us as we pulled into the church’s parking lot. The lot was wall-to-wall horses and black buggies. Shaking off my disbelief I turned to my wife and said.

“This must be the place; we were told to look for the little white church and this is the only one around. Lights are on in the basement.”

As we started down the storm-cellar stairway to the basement we were greeted by a wizardly old man in a black suit grinning from ear to ear.

            “Welcome friend. If you’re looking for an AA meeting, you’ve come to the right

               place, my name is Mose.”

            “Hi, I’m Jim and this is my wife, Cynthia.

”

We followed him down into the meeting hall filled with more black-suited men wearing denim shirts, no buttons and suspenders. My wife was quickly escorted to a room off the main meeting room by a couple of modestly dressed long skirted women for an Alanon meeting.

The meeting was ready to start.  It was a typical Ohio AA meeting; a lead meeting with a twenty minute speaker followed by a “pop-up” comment session for the balance of the hour. As the speaker and the “pop-ups” continued I became aware of numerous references to a fellow member named William.

Curious, I asked Mose.

“I presume William isn’t here tonight but I sure would like to meet him. It    sounds like he has a lot of wisdom and good sobriety.”. 

With that Mose jumped out of his seat giddy with laughter, pointed to me and addressed the group.

            “Our new friend James here doesn’t know who William is”.

With that the whole room exploded into laughter. At once it dawned on me.

            William… William..! They mean Bill, Bill W.

Amazing, here I am , , in a little burg out in the boonies, in the middle of Ohio in the middle of a fog, in a story book church with story book little men in black suits, their wives in long dresses while their horses hitched to buggies await them attending a meeting frequented by one of the founders of AA.

   

WOW. PRICELESS. Isn’t GOD great. 

For anyone, especially Bill W, (William) wanting to be simply Bill W. alcoholic, the meeting out in this small village in the countryside amongst the Amish was ideal.  In this “little burg” with these men one could find one of the backbone of our program; the simple, honest “principles before personalities” fellowship of AA.

 Jim M.

 http://www.facebook.com/

Mirror, mirror.....& Defects and flaws

Just back from a 12 Step meeting. Talked about the Sixth Step and defects of character. I could go on and on with a list of what I think are definitely my most glaring defects. So much so that when confronted about one of these defects I generally answer " yah I know, I'm working on it."
 No sweat, I've owned up to them, I can deal with the criticism, I can bow and graciously extend a "thanks for pointing that out" while oft times under my breath I'll make a note to myself that the person would have been better served if their mother had been married.
I wish it were all so simple, this getting a handle on all my flaws (defects) but sadly it isn't.Problem is its the defects in myself that I can't see; the defects that are relationship breakers.  Its wishful thinking to think that I could "nail" all of my defects.
Taint possible, simply because I can't see them. Or rather I can't accept that the flaws (defects) that piss me off about you are a true reflection of my own defects.I refuse to accept the defect as mine because; "I could never be like that".
Nope I'm too emotionally caught up in "your" defect that it completely blinds me to the truth. My ego will not tolerate me admitting to being human like the rest of you.
Thank God for the mirrors  who have the love and courage to be true and unflinching reflections in my life; my wife and my friends in the 12 Step fellowship in particular..
Backing up to the Fifth Step, we admit these defects to self, God and another human being. While all three are essential another human being provides us with the truest reflection we need in our daily comings and goings. When the behavior of another irks me I have learned from experience in recovery to pray for the individual. Surprise, surprise somehow I seem to receive the benefit of the prayer...a new awareness. I take ownership of the same "defect of character" in me. 

   Jim

Sharing our experience, strength and hope.

Food can be grown almost anywhere yet millions are starving. Oil is in abundance yet prices soar. To quote Parker Palmer, “What is truly remarkable about the human animal is not that we take physical abundance and turn it into scarcity (or demand an exorbitant  price for it) but that we do the same with the infinite gifts of the Spirit.”

It is one thing to overvalue diamonds or under supply tomatoes. Yet how often in our relationships with God and others do we act as if the Spirit’s stores of love, affection, trust and compassion were limited. Why do we hold back; afraid if others get too much of it, there won’t be enough left for me?

We in recovery often hear we have been given an abundance of love, “much more than we deserve.”  We also know that by sharing our experience, strength and hope that we receive much more in peace and serenity in out lives.

It simply comes down to “we have to give it away, in order to keep it.” The more freely we share the more we get in return.

 

We in recovery have been invited to a King’s banquet yet we stop at the first Hors d'oeuvres table, satisfy our own appetite with finger food, sometimes hesitant and afraid to enter into the main dinning hall to sit at the King’s table and share the feast with others.

 Jim

http://www.amazon.com/Joyous-Free-James-Frederick/

RECOVERY

Steps on the grounds of a leading A& D treatment center on English Mountain in the Smokies.

A great reminder to all of us in recovery that in in order to climb out of our addition we must use these steps daily.

.

Imperfect Spirituality

I'm giving a workshop presentation in a few weeks. The emphasis will be on Imperfect Spirituality or Spirituality of Imperfection; the premise that it's through our flaws that we grow spiritually. It's a spiritual journey taken step by step on human feet.

By embracing and living through our flaws ("character defects and shortcomings") we become whole. Granted wholeness is not a destination, it's a process, a one-day-at-a-time journey into wholeness. As Yogi Berra said, "it's not over till it's over."

It's a journey not undertaken alone although we alone can not do it alone. We need others. Bill Wilson and Bob Wilson started it all with their first meeting. Bill would later identify that meeting in Akron in 1935 as the critical link in AA and is quoted as saying "I came to the realization that "I needed him and he needed me."

I also know that embarking on and continuing on this journey requires the grace of my Higher Power. It wasn't until I pleaded with God to help me that I picked up the phone and called for help. I had no idea that I was taken the first step on a spiritual journey: hell I was hopeless and helpless on the brink of losing everything and I just wanted to save my ass.

Why that day of all days did I call for help, when there were many times before that I should have called? I have come to understand that it was the grace of God working in and for me. I also understand that although the grace of God is paramount I need another human being, another flawed person(s) to identify with.

The freedom and the courage to embark and continue on this High-way of sobriety comes from not only identifying with another alcoholic but that it's "through forgiving him/her I can forgive my self. It's the old adage, "if he can do it, I can do it."

Approaching fifty years I can share with you that there were many days my feet of clay wanted (wants) to run away. To escape the pain of facing "life on life's terms" but it's the grace/love of my Higher Power and the support/love of others that soothes that pain, shores me up and turns me around.

Thanks to all of you

Jim

What Will It Be......or not?

Good friends, friends who know our warts and still love us to pieces.

Friends, closer than family, who

I suspect know us better than ourselves

after all they’ve got a ring side seat to all our antics; only thing missing is the popcorn

Why am I concerned with what they think or for that matter what I think?

God knows, and yet continues to include me in Creation.

Am I a critical and unique link in the whole scheme of things or just a metaphor.

Are my worst mistakes my best contributions or is it those times

when I scored myself a perfect ten?

How much and in what way does my laughter and

my tears contribute one iota to anything..

Am I part of the spit that keeps everything together?

Or am I a particle of tension keeping everything from colliding.

What is it?

Am I this or that or…am I this and that?

My bumbling speech? My misspoken and mistaken word?

My gravity dragging actions?

Is it in spite of them or because of them?

Is it my experiences stacked high with age or is it my ignorance of tomorrow?

After three quarters of a century under my belt are

the few remaining years to contain my main event?

Will I recognize it or will it be like so many others in the past

just another day at the office?

Will I participate or sit idly by?

Will I sit on my comfortable old ass or get up and take the risk?

God what ever is your will use my love hungry heart, my memory filled mind and my love –to-tell-a-story tongue as instruments of Your love and Your peace.

Jim

God's Network

Attended a truly joyful “Old Timers,” dinner and meeting last night. Everybody with over twenty-five years of sobriety was counted as an old timer. I have forty-nine and was the oldest in the room. Our town’s oldest, a wonderful woman and an icon with 56 years couldn’t make it.

Seemed overcrowded with alki(s). As I looked over the crowd I thought, “ damn there are a lot of old guys and gals here; a hundred of us. What a diverse and strange group. We all looked anonymous, couldn’t pick us out in a crowd unless you were one of us.”

Wish I could have taken pictures. People, standing around hugging, laughing, talking while juggling and eating off paper plates with a plastic fork in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. If you’re counting it would appear that they needed three hands. That’s what was so weird about it. It came off without any major food spills. Guess that happens when the love in the room overcome gravity.

Asked to speak (oldest) I threw away what I planned on saying and attempted to make out a list of all the wonderful loving mentors God had placed in my life over the fifty years (I had an up and down year prior to my sobriety date.) The list went on and on until I stopped, remembering the chairperson had asked me to keep it short.

Looking out over the audience as I took the podium I remember David C. and David G.. The bond between us was formed in sharing our strength and love with each other in our grief at “losing sons” the same year (2005). Since we worked together (I’m sure God had arranged it and really strange circumstances brought us together) we were a daily support to each other and we needed it. I paid tribute to a lot of my sponsors, finished the talk in the appointed time without mentioning either David and left the podium.

The next day I answered my cell. It was David C. on the line. He was in Charlotte NC, alone, attending a conference but was bubbling over. He had been reading my book “Joyous & Free In Spite of Myself.” He was beside himself with identifying with my story, the issues and the voices. He had also met a young man, new to the program, at the AA meeting the night before. He said, “you were there with us. We were one, the three of us. It was truly a “bonus” meeting.”

However what he was excited about was what he called the most amazing part of the evening and the frosting on the cake. Later and alone after his “bonus meeting” he checked his phone. Much to his surprise he heard my voice, apparently I was at the podium and he was hearing my “talk”. Evidently as I walked up to the stage I had mistakenly hit a redial or something instead of the silence button.

Jim

God's Artwork & Bush's Beans

Been having a high ole time here in the Smokies. Here on business really: a three- day board meeting.

To break the tedium of the meetings we got into our cars and went to Bush’s Beans, home (home, factory, restaurant, museum and country store) of the famous Bush Beans and their dog Mike for lunch. Of course they had cute little doggie pillows and a bunch of hand crafted “pick’n” instruments make with “guitar strings” on a slat of hand-fashioned mountain wood screwed into a Bush’s bean can.

They also had the customary ole-timey items “for sale” and clerks dressed in their frontier 19the century calico dresses and head gear.

If this wasn’t exciting enough we topped it all off going to Clint’s home spun country and antique choked (over done, they must have made midnight raid on a Cracker Barrel) BBQ restaurant for dinner.

The restaurant was bedecked with a life sized picture of the patron saint of Gatlinburg and the Smokies, Ms. Dolly Parton with her piled high blond hair and famous tooters. Of course Clint a grinn’n ear to ear was in the picture with Dolly. Both with the look of kindred country spirits.

Side note on Clint. Clint was rotund and white bearded like a classic Santa Clause. Mr. C worn a droopy mountain hat and overalls in the evenings but not while operating his rug cleaning business during the day.

A man of many homespun talents he also had his own gospel singing band that performed nightly in his picnic- benched tourist-filled BBQ emporium. Well perhaps not nightly due to his faithfulness in attending services at his church in the valley.

On the way home after all the excitement I was happy not to encounter a stray deer intent on tangling with my windshield nor a black bear homesteading in the middle of my pitch-dark narrow switch-back mountain roadway.

I’m just grateful I’m snug in my room and will be returning to my home turf tomorrow filled up to my eyebrows in country-mountain culture and charm.

May God forgive me if you think I’m making fun or unintentionally hurting anyone’s feelings. My only point is that a Chicago area bred and raised guy like myself probable can’t appreciate good gospel music and deep fried or BBQ food.

God is so generous up here with His beauty.

Jim

SLAVES TO A DIFFERENT MASTER

Yes, Charleston does have a Slave Mart, granted today it’s a museum even if some of Charleston’s vendors would like to deny it ever existed, Believe its because there is no money in it for them.

We found it just a couple of blocks away where the lady with the babble decorated glasses adamantly declared that we were just out to besmirch South Carolina’s famous seaport’s good name.

My thoughts went right away to the enslaved poor and illiterate who populate our land of the free and the brave today.

No, we don’t shackle them in irons; we’ve gotten so much more civilized. We shackle them to living hand to mouth or worse beg to mouth with lack of opportunity, lack of money, lack of education, lack of political power and a host of other ball and chains.

It’s amazing how after all these years the scars from the beatings and irons are still visible on the psyche of so many, yet so many can't figure out why, after all they're free now and we did pass the bill of rights. I guess they figure its no different than the etchings of approval and the landmarks of the landed gentry is on the backs of their decedents.

But I digress. What caught my eye was the AA unity symbol (the circle within the triangle) carved into the façade of the building above the larger of the two windows on the second floor.

Poetic in that freedom from the slavery to our addictions has been and always is right above us.

Really Grateful. Joyous and Free.

Jim

CHARLESTON, NC

Can’t get there without crossing water as one of the natives said. Couple of big bridges, lot of smaller ones and causeways, even drawbridges.

Ran the Cooper suspension bridge

Don/t know whether you’re crossing river, bay, creek or marsh at night. Length height and smell are tell tale signs, marshes are dank and muddy and a little fishy at low tide.

The food is great. In fact one could spend the whole week long vacation burping from one “must go to” seafood, bib and shell bucket eatery to another.

We sat at a table with several little brass medallions nailed to the surface with little brass nails. Each had the name of some celebrity.

I had a bit of lark envisioning John McLain sitting at this same table Hootie and the Goldfish; I’m sure it had been on different occasions.

I sat in the Hulk Hogan seat and got my picture taken with my arm on a mermaids shoulder

The older and squeaker the dining rooms floors, the more “Charleston’s Finest” awards clutter the walls.

Speaking of walls I believe every spring or other tourist season there must be a contest to determine on which restaurant/bistro walls thereon are hung the most celebrate pics. The older and more funky the better.

Went to the “Slave Market”. Asked one Charleston store owner at the “Charleston Market ” where the SM was. Peering over her babble decorated chain secured reading glasses and out from behind her array of Charleston souvenir shot glasses she very promptly corrected us that Charleston did not, yes she repeated it “Charleston does not have a Slave Market!

Since she was so adamant we were wrong we were determined to find it tomorrow.

Gotta get out of here. Go for a run on the beach; fly a kite and kayaking yet this pm.

Doggone sobriety is great! Joyous and Free.

Jim

WHAT WILL IT BE?

Good friends, friends who know your warts and still love you to pieces.

Friends, closer than family, who

I suspect know us better than ourselves

after all

They’ve got a ring side seat; only thing missing is the popcorn

Why am I concerned with what they think or for that matter what I think?

God knows, and yet continues to include me in Creation.

I’m a critical and unique link or just a metaphor.

Are my worst mistakes my best contributions or is it those times when I scored myself a perfect ten?

How much and in what way does my laughter and my tears contribute one iota to anything..

Am I part of the spit that keeps everything together?

Or am I a particle of tension keeping everything from colliding.

What is it?

Am I this or that or…am I this and that?

My bumbling speech? My misspelled and mistaken word?

My gravity dragging actions?

Is it in spite of them or because of them?

Is it my experiences stacked high with age or is it my ignorance of tomorrow?

After three quarters of a century under my belt are the few remaining years to contain my main event?

Will I recognize it or will it be like so many others in the past just another day at the office?

Will I participate or sit idly by?

Will I sit on my comfortable old ass or get up and take the risk?

God what ever is your will use my love hungry heart, my memory filled mind and my love –to-tell-a-story tongue as instruments of Your love and Your peace.

JIM

Fellow Spiritual Travelers

Stopped by and visited with a new friend of mine. Interesting guy. Lost his wife a year ago. Writes poetry almost daily since losing her a year ago; his grief still runs deep.

Since then it's amazing on how he changed. He knows it. No hostility, no anger just a calmness, a peace, "a new me." He says nothing upsets him, acceptance has set in. As he pats his chest he says "she lives on here." Yet he acknowledges "its more than a circumstantial change, it's deeper and broader than that, I'm a new me. Totally different."

His poetry, like his new and exciting "new me" and his relationship with his Higher Power is bursting at the seams. He admits to a "spiritual awakening," his words not mine. We agree that when we first met we could feel the energy, the spiritual energy, that energy that goes beyond words and explanations, we were and are one.

One, because in God we are one. God has always been there we are the johnny-come-latelies who have discover this truth. I experienced it when I entered my first AA meetings. An old friend in the program always insisted that "upon entering a AA meeting or encountering a fellow alcoholic on the street there was a electricity, a recognition of a fellow spiritual traveler."

My new friend and I talked for quite a while in his place of business; he ignored the ringing phone. We were talking about his new found love of writing poetry. I shared with him my own passion.

We agreed poetry brings out or manifests the feminine in us. We also agreed that the male is incomplete until he discovers and integrates the feminine within. We have come to the realization that it sometimes take a jolt, a traumatic experience to jar lose the masculine grip. To make known the masculine's vulnerable self. To deflate the masculine ego and let the feminine heart do the "thinking."

Since the feminine is linked to the heart, it follows that the metaphor,creativity, caring, compassion, suffering and love are also present; that's poetry.

Higher Power

Got up this morning wanting to post a note. Lot on my mind to share.

Instead during prayer and meditation time got out of my mind and followed my heart into the following.

Knowing You

If You are everywhere

Then why are You so hard to find?

If You’re the very breathe I catch

Then why can’t I hold You longer?

Some say You’re within

A light brighter than the sun

Then why can mere skin bar the sight of You?

Some say You’re in nature

In majestic mountains and towering trees

Then why can mere distraction

Blot You from sight?

If You’re everywhere

Why do I have to seek You?

If I can’t see You

Why do I look and look?

Why explain Yourself

If You’re who I know You to be,

You’re a mystery and

This mere mortal would

never understand.

This knowing You....

I know.

It’s experiencing You

That overshadows

Mere knowledge of You.

Jim

Book Launch--Joyous & Free

I'm back again. The last time I came back I thought I would be able to settle back into a routine of posting and dabbling with prose and poetry. I was wrong, the preparation for the book launch was mild and less time consuming than the actual launch.

This summer has been one hell of roller coaster ride. In future posts I'll share with you my summer adventures of book signings,conventions and speaking engagements.
These occasions have been a source of true joy. I have met and made friends with hundreds of wonderful folks and with this I am a wealthy man.

In this post I want to thank all those I met and for their overwhelming acceptance of Joyous & Free .

Thank you all for your more than generous postings on and for the many emails comments that I have published in the 2nd Edition due out this week.

Thanks again for your participation in Joyous & Free exceeding all expectations.

I will continue to post.

James Frederick

Last Resort

Finding myself at a turning point, my belief in a Higher Power and my life in tatters, friends suggested, to mend my ways, I reached out, prayed as they advised. ”God if there is a God help me” and put Him to the test. Later I had to buy my first used car. Once more I listened to my friends, prayed and did a test drive.


LAST RESORT
I was desperate,
why else would I turn
to you?
They said
you were reliable,
could be trusted.

Wavering,
I opened the door.
Stepped in.
Got behind the wheel.
Turned the key.
Shifted out of reverse
into forward.

To me, you were
just another used car.
I kicked your tires,
tested your steering
on open road
and congested streets.

I found you
to be like no other.
No rattles, no shakes.
Balanced and aligned
your timing perfect,
you purred in cruise
and when pedal to metal
you roared.

With a fresh belief,
trusting your handling,
experiencing your power,
I bought You,

bumper to bumper.

Jim

Journey and Destination

Sometimes we're blessed with the awareness that we're experiencing some precious and wonderful moments. We are conscious of an infinite moment. Trapped in linear time and space the beauty of the moment passes however it's not lost but is capture by all our senses for all time.

This pass week we were gifted with a flood of these moments attending a week-long Dream Conference between the awesome delight of crossing and recrossing the Smokies and the Appalachians. We could have taken the interstates and been there within hours. We opted for the "scenic route", 118 curves in 11 miles at one stretch. We choose the clear air, waterfalls, white water, trees and more trees, embracing shear cliffs and slow traffic (mostly under 40mph)to the intimidating broad-sided diesel belching 18 wheelers.

At the conference we met old and new friends. With the "old" we shared the laughs and the tears of the past year. With the "new" we relived the excitement and expectations of "first- timers". We sang, ate, prayed and shared dreams in our lake-side wilderness retreat.Laughter was the music of the week. Even the ducks waddled up on shore to add their "quakling" voices.

The frosting on the cake, being a first time author, for me was the announcement from the podium to the approximately 200 assembled that my book and ebook (Kindle) "Joyful & Free" was now available that day on Amazon.

Needless to say I was overwhelmed with gratitude to my life-time mate and all the wonderful people who who have helped me over the years to have such a week.

Who says we have to die to experience heaven.

Jim

Joyous & Free In Spite of Myself

Back again after a couple of months of blood, sweat and tears (I exaggerate, actually I enjoyed it) getting my new book ready for launching.

The title says it all. IN SPITE OF MYSELF I completed everything required (felt more like demanded of me) and the printers proof arrived yesterday for approval. With our approval I am told it is ready and available to all on Amazon.

The book takes the reader along on a trip through the first five years of his sobriety. It is the author's journey of mind, body and spirit that is accompanied by a running dialogue(conflict) between his ears (mind talk) over how to stay sober, change and turn his life around. The battle wages between his old way of addictive thinking and acting out to a new and uncharted sober way of thinking and living.

Happy to see all but a couple of my favorites are still up and running. Missed you all

Jim

Handling Change

Love life now that I no longer feel the drive to travel life's highway in the control lane. Yesterday had been planned a couple of weeks in advance. We would drive up to Nashville and spend the weekend with our children, and their children.

The main reason(s) for the planned weekend was the celebration of not one but five birthdays, an anniversary and family get-together delayed by an unusually cold and nasty winter.

It would be an eventful couple of days sitting in the stands watching one our great grand daughters perform in dance competition and witness our one great grandson compete in basketball. The frosting on the cake would be the cake all of us together.

On Friday I scheduled having new tires mounted on the car for the trip to Mobile and Mardi Gras the following Friday. Needed to get it done this Friday cause after the Nashville trip, I had to travel cross state Monday night to attended a board meeting (2 days).

Proud of myself because I had masterfully maneuvered appointments and commitment's around and had leaned on my mechanic to squeeze the tire thing into my schedule. I was in the cat-bird seat. God I was good!

Saturday morning I was still patting myself on the back when 10 miles out of town and cruising the interstate at 75 I was flagged down by a passing car. The driver slowed, kept abreast of me while frantically pointing to something wrong one of my tires. At first I was bewildered, no way they're not 24hrs old so I shook him off until he sped up to reveal he had his blinker on.

Quick witted as I am I figured it out. I pulled over to the shoulder, got out and discovered one of my tires was flat. Right, so after my wife suggested I call 911, say the Serenity Prayer I called Tennessee's excellent emergency road service. Within twenty minutes my "donut" spare was mounted. Nothing I could do about fixing the new tire today, my mechanic was closed with no home phone.

To sum this up my wife and I stopped for coffee, notified Nashville about change in plans for the day. Having accepted our powerlessness over our situation and deciding on our first move the rest of the day just fell into place filled with being in the right places, at the right time with people who needed us in their lives that day.

Scare myself when I accept change and interruption in MY plans so easily. All I can say is that Serenity Prayer is a real winner and I can't compete only cooperate with that Higher Power.

Jim

Conscious Contact

Reading Transcending The Levels of Consciousness, D. Hawkins, the other day I came across a passage that hooked me. As usual I twisted it into words I can relate to. The parenthesises are mine.

Mystical union(conscience contact with God) is a state of grace that is unconjured (not conjured by our prayer, meditation or any effort on our part)by work or practice, though it usually follows upon them.

In Step Ten of 12 Step recovery it is suggested that we seek this conscience contact through prayer and meditation. The step also gives promise that if we do so we will recognize the implication of this conscious contact in our daily life.

Over time I came to believe ( to be convinced)that this conscience contact with God is evidenced by the recognition that all is grace and synchronicity, so that, no matter how chaotic or puzzling life becomes, my destiny is being beautifully fulfilled.

As the days and years tumble on I wonder why I wasted so much time struggling with worry or fear for the future, beating my self up, concerned that I wouldn't be up for coping with life's situations lacking the faith in my Higher Power.

When asked, I'll tell you my life until I was in my late twenties was one of chaos and lacking direction; that my life changed when I sobered up and turned my will and my life over to Good Orderly Direction.

I have to admit my ego kinda hedged the "turned my life over" proclamation with,"yah but, remember buster some of the credit belongs to me. If it wasn't for me planning your next moves and practicing every day on the maintenance of your spiritual condition some of the glitter would come off your new life."

I came to realize that my struggle with worry and fear was the product of my battle with life to retain control of it. The more I practiced letting go and letting GOD take care of the future the more peace and serenity I experience in my life. I must add my Higher Power doesn't send me advanced travel plans for my journey; no, just daily road signs (people,especially people, places and things) as to which routes and turns I should take next.

If I stay in the present, heed His direction and listen to the people in my life that I love (and visa-versa)my life as seen in my rear-view mirror makes sense. I can trust it. I'm where I'm suppose to be, going where I suppose to be. And to me that's down right awesome.

Conscious Contact With Higher Power

Reading Transcending The Levels of Consciousness, D. Hawkins, the other day I came across a passage that hooked me. As usual I twisted it into words I can relate to. The parenthesises are mine.

Mystical union(conscience contact with God) is a state of grace that is unconjured (not conjured by our prayer, meditation or any effort on our part)by work or practice, though it usually follows upon them.

In Step Ten of 12 Step recovery it is suggested that we seek this conscience contact through prayer and meditation. The step also gives promise that if we do so we will recognize the implication of this conscious contact in our daily life.

Over time I came to believe ( to be convinced)that this conscience contact with God is evidenced by the recognition that all is grace and synchronicity, so that, no matter how chaotic or puzzling life becomes, my destiny is being beautifully fulfilled.

As the days and years tumble on I wonder why I wasted so much time struggling with worry or fear for the future, beating my self up, concerned that I wouldn't be up for coping with life's situations lacking the faith in my Higher Power.

When asked, I'll tell you my life until I was in my late twenties was one of chaos and lacking direction; that my life changed when I sobered up and turned my will and my life over to Good Orderly Direction.

I have to admit my ego kinda hedged the "turned my life over" proclamation with,"yah but, remember buster some of the credit belongs to me. If it wasn't for me planning your next moves and practicing every day on the maintenance of your spiritual condition some of the glitter would come off your new life."

I came to realize that my struggle with worry and fear was the product of my battle with life to retain control of it. The more I practiced letting go and letting GOD take care of the future the more peace and serenity I experience in my life. I must add my Higher Power doesn't send me advanced travel plans for my journey; no, just daily road signs (people,especially people, places and things) as to which routes and turns I should take next.

If I stay in the present, heed His direction and listen to the people in my life that I love (and visa-versa)my life as seen in my rear-view mirror makes sense. I can trust it. I'm where I'm suppose to be, going where I suppose to be. And to me that's down right awesome.