Mr. SponsorPants

No Biting! No Biting!

There's this thing with cats -- if you're not a cat person, bear with me, this is not a post about cats -- but there's this thing with cats that you can be petting them petting them petting them and they're purring away, clearly in the pet-me-love-me-love-you groove, and basking in the physical affection... and snap! Without warning, and apparently without reason (all you were doing was petting), they turn and bite.   Not all cats, of course (I want to hasten to point that out, lest I get a deluge of emails from angry cat-lovers accusing me of felinophobia or anti-cat bias or something.)  But with some cats this is a regular thing.  Prrr. Prrr. Snap. Bite.

Desperate for small talk at a party one time I found that the guest seated near me at dinner was a veterinarian, so I asked them about this Prrr Prrr Snap Bite thing.  (For the record, if you are at a dinner party and asking someone a question about cats -- or animals in general -- it's probably not a great social strategy to actually make the animal's noise when asking your question.  I'm just sayin'.)

The vet's response was that at some point, when the cat was a kitten, people had, most likely in play -- with no intent of abusing the animal -- rough-housed too much, batting it around and such in what seemed like gentle fun to the person but what must have been like assault and battery to the kitten.  He pointed out the scale of two human hands to one kitten blah blah blah... and then I left my body for a while since he really went on and on and on, and I have a very short attention span... but when I came back I discovered I'd dribbled dressing on my shirt but finished off an excellent salad, and the vet was wrapping up his point with the idea that the cat had made an association with something -- be it affection of a certain kind, or human touch, or a certain level of excitement -- that caused it to lash out, even when it didn't feel hostile or threatened.

I'm like that, I think.  I wonder if that's not true for a lot of alcoholics.  We have certain associations that are deeply rooted, that cause us to lash out, even if there's no reason we can see within ourselves as to why we're lashing out.  (Sure, this is probably true to some degree in all people, but fueled by hyper-sensitivity and warped egos I suspect alcoholics can really take this to an extreme.)  In my case, I believe, I lash in more than I lash out -- rather than attacking people around me I tend to attack myself, but the mechanism is pretty much the same.  Some of us are doormat drunks and some of us are punch-throwing asshole drunks -- my observation is that in sobriety those dynamics can still be in play for maybe quite a long time.

So here's the thing:  We may not be able to see those associations within ourselves, but a sponsor, or close sober friend, might, if we've been earnest and honest with them about everything that's going on with us.  Or a therapist -- do not underestimate the value of a good trained professional.

But what makes AA not a psychological endeavor, what makes a good sponsor not a therapist, is that ultimately the solution to these dynamics -- these deep down associations that cause either hostile or self destructive impulses -- is not a clinical one but a spiritual one.

In the 12 Steps themselves they're pretty much addressed in the 3rd (Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.), 6th (Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.) and 7th (Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.) Steps.

This does not mean I sit on my ass, praying for God to change me and then waiting for that to happen.  (Man, I wish that was the deal.)  I pray allright, but then I need to get busy. 

I get busy whether, on any given day, my belief in God is in my heart or only in my head.  I work to be willing to do contrary action, to listen to tough truths from people I trust, to snip the wires on those associations, so I'm not blindly lashing -- be it lashing out or lashing in.

Why? Because I woke up today wishing to give Mother Teresa a run for her money? (Hand me that dish towel, my gold chain necklaces and buzz my head in a mohawk, I'm goin' Mr. T on Mother T!)  No.  I get busy because "Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us." ("Alcoholics Anonymous", AA's Big Book, pg. 77).

Again, why?  Because alcoholism kicked my ass (as Mother Theresa likely could have when she was alive -- you don't come from the streets of Calcutta and not know how to handle yourself, nun or no nun -- I'm just sayin') and because "Helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery." (Big Book, pg. 97 -- underlining mine).

That's what makes it a spiritual solution and not a clinical one. Our solution is found through service -- even though our thinking is often the problem we heal through action on the altruistic plane, not the mental one.  I need to address the things that I may be blind to, that cause me to react without realizing it, so that I can better help other people get and stay sober, and eventually be more of service in general as I go through the world, and this is a crucial ingredient in my own sobriety.

Plus, you can't be bitin' people when you're workin' the 12th Step.  I'm just sayin'.

When my mind is racing or my heart feels like a stone sometimes it's the shortest prayer that helps me the most.

The Sailor's Prayer

Dear God, be good to me.  The sea is so wide and my boat is so small.

________________________________________________________

A World War 2 veteran told me that this was a prayer said before battle as they stormed the beaches.  I don't know if it was a common prayer at the time, or just something he whispered under his breath as he charged up the sand.

God, come. Come now. Come Yourself. Don't send your Son, this is no place for children.

________________________________________________________

This prayer is moving and helpful to me, even without knowledge of who the author was.

Mychal's Prayer

Lord, take me where You want me to go; Let me meet who You want me to meet; Tell me what You want me to say; And keep me out of Your way.

Attributed to Father Mychal Judge, NYC Fire Department Chaplain, killed September 11, 2001

Not the answer

If hungry isn't the problem then food is not the answer.

If horny isn't the problem then sex is not the answer.

If lack is not the problem then more is not the answer.

Friday Night Fights! Rigid vs. Disciplined!

I once had to drink three pots of coffee to quit a job.

But I'll get to that in a minute.

Welcome to another Cage Match! Today, it's Rigid vs. Self Disciplined.

In a word, I think the main difference between them is fear.  (Damn. That guy is always turning up and ruining everything.  I hate that guy!)

I was talking to a sponsee on the phone earlier, and they were observing that they used to do a written 10th Step every night (for the new kids, AA's Step 10 says: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.  Many AA's like to do one in writing, often at the end of the day.)  When my sponsee did do a nightly Step 10 (in a little journal they'd bought for just that purpose) they felt much better overall.  They couldn't pinpoint exactly when they stopped doing this good habit, it just sort of... fell away.  This particular sponsee is pretty willing, and it would be fair to say that in many areas of their life they're pretty self disciplined.  Funny how sometimes good habits, even for people who are generally self disciplined, can just sort of fall away.  (To my mind it may be useful to think about why the good habit falls away, to try to prevent its falling away again, but it's even more useful to pick up the new habit again, and sort out the "falling away" stuff after you're back into action.)  Being self disciplined about certain AA tools is a sound practice -- if I do the deal when it's no big deal then I'm already doing the deal when I really need it.

The thing about self discipline is that it has room for mistakes and minor interruptions -- it's got some flexibility.  I think this sponsee is easily going to get back into writing their 10th Step at night, because they are moving towards something:  In this case that feeling of peace they get when they're really active in working the Steps in their life.

Rigid is a whole other breed of cat.  I've been rigid, and while I can sure get busy behind that, it's all about fear. Fear of failure. Fear of not doing what I promised myself I would do. Fear of missing out, fear of screwing up, fear of not achieving the goal.  My god, rigid is exhausting.

In fact, I believe that when I'm rigid I'm motivated by fear of failing to achieve a goal and when I'm self disciplined I'm motivated by wanting to achieve that goal.

How does this impact AA, and my sobriety?

Because people who are rigid about their recovery seem more prone to snap, in my observation.  If I'm rigid about things I've got a lot of black-and-white thinking going on.  I'm closed minded, usually.  And I'm living in a lot of fear.  I think that is fertile ground for alcoholic thinking to creep in.  ("Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than his body"  "Alcoholics Anonymous", AA's Big Book, pg. 23  Though in the interest of accuracy they're talking more about the curious mental blank spot in that specific passage.)

Self discipline is the long distance runner -- the pace may vary but you keep going.

Speaking for myself -- and in a general way about alcoholics, based on my observation -- rigid is a state alcoholics slide into much more easily than self discipline.

When some sponsees are new to working with me they ask if I want them to call me on the phone every day to "check in".  My answer is always the same: "If you like.  Call me as much as you need to, it always helps me to get out of myself, and your call will help with that.  If you want to make a commitment to yourself to call me every day that's fine, but if you don't, that's ok too."

Here's the rigid part: So then some of them decide in their head to call me every day.  Great! Love hearing from them.  But then they miss one day -- and then I don't hear from them for a week (unless I call them first, which I usually do, to talk about this very thing).  I don't hear from them for a week because, in the alcoholic mind, it goes like this: "I was going to call every day! I missed a day! I ruined it! Now I can't call at all!"  (of course that's an oversimplification, but that does seem to represent the logic chain).  And that's how being rigid works against us.  There's no breathing room with that.

Self discipline is working towards calling every day.  If you miss a day you get back to it a lot quicker, because you're trying to call every day, not trying to never-miss-a-day-calling.

OK. Now comes the drinking three pots of coffee to quit a job story.

After I was about ninety days sober I got a second job.  So I was working full time in the day, going to a meeting every night, and then working late nights and weekends.  It was good that I was so busy, it kept me from thinking a lot.  (But I have a very vivid memory of driving from the day job to the night job once, zipping along in my poor, battered alcoholic car, thinking about how -- at the time -- it had been months since I'd woken up with a hangover -- and prior to that it was probably ten years of waking up with a hangover every single day -- and just being so amazed and overjoyed by that fact I got choked up.)

While this was a great schedule for a while, I couldn't keep it up indefinitely, and eventually I had to give notice at the night job.  Except the guy I worked for was a powerful, difficult personality.  And at that time I didn't have the skills or tools or experience to be able to stand up to someone like that -- so I kept trying to give my notice and the conversation would always kind of just... go south.

Finally, I'd had it, and although it wasn't premeditated, I spent the afternoon drinking cup after cup of coffee (three pots worth -- no, really), working myself up into a caffeine-fueled frenzy.  I exploded into work, and had this crazy, intense, over-the-top conversation -- practically picking a fight, just so I could work up to having enough momentum to give my notice and finally quit.  (Later, when I told my sponsor about the whole thing, he observed that it takes more rocket fuel to launch than it does to fly.  Took me a while to get that.)

I think sometimes that applies when it comes to being self disciplined.  Sometimes I have to be really rigid first -- really get super crazy intense and put the no matter what! around something for me to get in forward motion.  Then, eventually (hopefully) I can downshift from the intensity of being rigid and kind of hit my stride with self discipline.

Sometimes it takes more rocket fuel to launch than it does to fly.

Of course praying helps a lot, too, on this.

Cheers!

Analogy

Picture this:

There you are, driving along in a rental car.  Strange town. Nice enough, nothing sinister (this is not the opening scene from "The Hills Have Eyes" or anything).  A little drama at the rental car counter, but nothing to get mad about -- the one car you'd reserved wasn't ready, so they upgraded you. Nice.  Except that they rushed it through, so it wasn't properly prepped, and when you looked in the glove compartment, there was no map.  Maybe the seat pockets?  You swipe your hand through the pocket behind the passenger seat... nope.  Empty. The one behind your seat? You twist around, one eye on the road, one hand on the wheel, the other doing a little blind grope in the pocket behind the driver's seat. Nothing. Empty.  But this being the 21st Century, many cars have built in GPS or auto navigation or some voice activated directional whatevers.  Sure would be nice if this was one of those cars that had one of those things, you think.  No cell signal either.  Just not shaping up to be your day, navigationally speaking.  You my friend, are lost.

Up ahead is a 7-11.  What the hell, you think, I'll get a drink, see if they sell maps or maybe ask for directions.  You pull in, get out of your rental, go into the store.  Nice kid behind the counter.  Bit of a mouth breather, maybe, but offered you a polite enough greeting when you came in.  You grab a bottle of water, bravely ignore the candy and go for some sugarless gum.  Doesn't look like they sell maps, though.  Your transaction concludes, and you say to the kid, "By the way, I'm trying to get to __________ and I got a little turned around.  Which way do I go from here?"

And the kid tells you.  Pretty good, clear directions.  Turns out a lot of people get lost, and he's used to giving directions.  You feel a little guilty about thinking he was maybe not so sharp, 7-11 job notwithstanding.  He draws you a little map, points out where it's easy to get lost again, gives you some good landmarks to watch for on the way, so you can keep checking to make sure you're on the right road.

You thank him, get back in your rental, and off you go.

I ask you...

Is that kid "better" than you, for knowing which way to go?  Do you think that he thinks he's better than you, merely because he had information that you didn't have?

Are you inferior to him, for having to ask for directions once you realized you were lost?

Is that kid "telling you what to do" by directing you on how to get from where you are to where you're supposed to be headed?

Would it have helped the process at all, after you'd asked for directions, to argue with the kid about how he was giving them to you?

Does it make any sense, after you've gotten back in your car and driven away, to decide that maybe the kid didn't know what he was talking about after all, and decide to skip a few of the turns and directions he gave you -- yet still expect to arrive at the destination you asked about?

Questions! From Mr. SponsorPants's Email Box! Over the Internetwork of Computers! The Set Aside Prayer.

Hi Mr. SponsorPants! (cute name!),

Say, have you ever heard of the Set Aside Prayer?  What do you think of it?

Angela

The Set Aside Prayer

Dear God,

Please set aside everything I think I know (about myself, my disease, the Big Book, the 12 Steps, the Fellowship, the people in the Fellowship, and all spiritual terms, and especially about you, God) so I may have an open mind and a new experience (with all these things).  Please help me see the Truth. Amen.

Angela,

Yes, I have -- I love it. I know that in the 12 Step World it's commonly called the Set Aside Prayer, and that in some circles it's called "The Lay-Aside Prayer".

I think it's a wonderful expression of "seeking to grow along spiritual lines".  I know that it's very popular not only with individual AA's, but has been popping up in a number of AA Meeting formats too. It's also well regarded in MA (Marijuana Anonymous) too.

I've seen it written out a number of ways, all similar, but with slightly different verbiage.  This is a common version:

Lord, today help me set aside everything I think I know about You, everything I think I know about myself, everything I think I know about others, and everything I think I know about my own recovery, for a new experience in myself, a new experience in my fellows, and my own recovery.

Then there's this one, which I'm more familiar with and I've heard in some AA meeting formats:

God, please help me set aside everything I think I know about myself, my disease, these Steps and especially You; for an open mind and a new experience with myself, my disease, these Steps and especially You.

Just as it says in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book) about the taking 3rd Step (for the new kids, the 3rd Step is offering your will and your life to the care of God as you understand God in a declarative prayer, most commonly referred to as "The 3rd Step Prayer", found on pg. 63 in the Big Book) "The wording was, of course, quite optional so long as we expressed the idea, voicing it without reservation." (The Big Book, pg. 63)  So in my humble opinion you should pick the version that resonates with you -- or even write your own version based in whole, part, or not at all on any of the ones above.

I believe the Set Aside version was made popular in AA circles, at least to some degree, by The Big Book Experience Study Guides which are available in both book and audio format.

While the Big Book Experience may have popularized the prayer I don't know who the actual author of the prayer itself is -- but if you read the different versions some seem more general and others more specific to a 12 Step sort of journey.  (Of course the authorship isn't at all important, I'm just a nerd that way.)

I know some people who have said this prayer in earnest for a definite period of time and have had some pretty mind blowing experiences from it.  Of course when people say that it's easy to disregard such a claim... and if you do, I would perhaps suggest looking at... oh, maybe the entire chapter entitled "We Agnostics" (Chptr. 4) in The Big Book.

Angela, thanks for writing, and thanks for bringing that topic to the blog -- it's a beautiful, powerful prayer.

Cheers!

Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. (Entirely? Really? Couldn't I make do with partially? Or probably? How about periodically ready? Will that work?)

"If we ask, God will certainly forgive our derelictions.  But in no case does He render us white as snow and keep us that way without our cooperation.  That is something we are supposed to be willing to work toward ourselves.  He asks only that we try as best we know how to make progress in the building of character." -- "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" -- the "12&12", Step Six, pg. 65

I don't know why, but sometimes capitalizing the "H" in "He" when writing about God bugs me.  It is a completely irrational response -- made even more so by the fact that I sometimes capitalize the "Y" in "You" when I write about God.  But there it is.  I have found that many of my weird little rebellions about God and faith are irrational.  The key, I suppose, is to set them aside and consider what the larger idea being expressed might mean -- and how it can help me.

Earlier in the Steps, around 2 and 3, a person comes to some sort of peace with the Higher Power thing.  Functionally for me, especially when I was new, AA and the collected sober fellowship was the HP I went to for direction, comfort and solutions.  I paid some lip service to the idea of "God" but in my heart didn't know what or how to believe.  (Good news! If you're in the same place I was, regardless of if you're in your first 30 days or your 30th year, you don't have to have that sorted out to make the Steps work for you, or stay sober, or have a spiritual experience.  So relax and don't torture yourself if the issue confounds you.) 

But while you don't have to get too ooky-spooky on the God-thing to get and stay sober, it is in Step 6, when I'm working on my "character" that I begin to consider a spiritual force at work -- as I'm asking that force to help me deal with (as in let go of) my defects -- the parts of my character that are defective, that is, that don't work anymore.  They used to, but now they don't.  Like a flat tire or a bad brake line.

It strikes me, as I really consider the passage above, that I'm less concerned about God's "forgiveness" than I am with God's help.

But in writing this, I'm forced to look at that with a fresh perspective.  What exactly do I mean by "God's help"?  I fear that what I really want is for God (whatever that is to me on any given day) to make it so the things that used to work for me start to work again, not to change me/things so that I don't get/want to use them anymore.

Maybe secretly I don't want to change forward, I want to change backward.  I want my defects to not be defective, not my character.

In some ways I can't even imagine me without some of my deepest, most personal and favorite defects.  (when I was brand brand new I thought this Step was stupid.  "Who the hell wouldn't want to get rid of a defect?" I thought.  It's different now.)

Please understand, when I say that, I'm not talking about being unwilling so much as leaping ahead to one of the fears expressed in Step 7, ("I'll look like the hole in the donut!") I cannot see what I am without those defects.  Not will not -- can not.  Without those things -- or even without the pain of those things -- to define me, who or what will I be? I'll be a cypher.  I'll be blank.  I'll be nothing -- that's the 'hole in the donut' fear.  Who am I if I'm not that guy who's always screwed up in those six familiar ways, or worried about those same four things I've worried about almost my whole life?  I'm getting ready not only to let go of my defects, I'm getting ready to let go of a whole idea about who I am!

Step Six goes on to say this:

"So Step Six -- 'Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character' -- is AA's way of stating the best possible attitude one can take in order to make a beginning on this lifetime job.  This does not mean that we expect all our character defects to be lifted out of us as the drive to drink was.  A few of them may be, but with most of them we shall have to be content with patient improvement.  The key words 'entirely ready' underline the fact that we want to aim at the very best we know or can learn.  How many of us have this degree of readiness?  In an absolute sense practically nobody has it.  The best we can do, with all the honesty we can summon, is to try to have it." -- "12&12", Step Six, pg. 65-66

A lifetime job.  Okay.  It's about being ready -- for me today, that means trying to imagine myself without some of my dearest and deepest coping mechanisms.  Let me tell you, it's easy to want to be rid of the pain that a character defect causes, but that's not the same as wanting to be rid of the character defect.

I take great comfort in the rest of what it says in those passages from Step Six.  It's an echo of what's written in "How it Works", Chapter 5 in the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book.)  "No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles.  We are not saints.  The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines."

I don't have to be perfect -- I just have to be ... willing. Be ready. Try.  Sounds so simple -- and it is.  But simple is not the same as easy.  Yet these steps, and AA's writings, were not developed from theory -- they were developed from experience.  The collected sober experience of a fellowship of alcoholics far greater than myself -- the very same higher power that I believed in at the very beginning, before I even really had a sense of what bringing things to "God" might actually be about.

So although striving to be "entirely ready" to let go of my character defects, to be entirely ready for God (whatever that is to me on any given day) to change me, may not be easy, it's somewhat easier because I know this is a Program that actually works -- that other people have done this before me.  That in letting go of my defects, in being ready (and then willing) to have God change me -- and to be an active participant in the changing -- to fall face forward into not even knowing who I will be when I let go of these defects (which is an exercise in faith)... is an ongoing, lifelong process that others have done before me -- and still others are doing right along with me, as we "trudge the road of happy destiny" together.

And I don't have to worry about getting it right, I just have to be willing. Work on being ready.  Try.

If your day is crap -- restart it.

Do over!  Do over!

That's the best part of playing games when you're little -- if things aren't going the way you want them to, you can just start again.

For alcoholics, this childlike solution can still work for us when our day has turned (or is turning) to crap.

(And a childlike solution is just what we need, since when things aren't going our way most of us can be very childish).

If my alcoholism is particularly articulate when it starts talking to me first thing in the morning (and that's the problem with my alcoholism, it's a very early riser.  I'll shuffle into the kitchen, trying to focus on making coffee, and there's my alcoholism, all perky and energetic, like Doris Day's doppleganger, wide awake and happy to chat me up about the impending calamity of my day:  "Good morning, Mr. SponsorPants! I checked, and you're still a failure.  Oh, and you can stop wondering, you were right about how stupid you sounded the other day, I went over -- in detail, no, don't thank me -- all of the conversations you've ever had in your life, and there's a clear pattern of stupidity.  So your concerns about yesterday are well founded, and turn out to be correct.  Shall we talk about your bank statement?") I can really get thrown off my game.

Of course alcoholics don't own having a day start (or go) badly; Flat tires, broken alarm clocks, spilled coffee on the last clean shirt... that's just life.  But an alcoholic's reaction can get pretty extreme -- even self destructive.  (As the old joke goes, a regular guy gets a flat tire and he calls Triple A, an alcoholic gets a flat and we dial Suicide Prevention.)

But here's an excellent suggestion from the fellowship of AA that has served me well over the years:  If your day starts badly, and continues to go downhill, just start your day over.  Genius!  So simple.

Just literally take a deep breath and begin again.  I have gone so far as to leave a building and re-enter -- but then, I am an odd man, so people expect this kind of thing from me.  Still, if you step outside for a minute, take several really spectacular, gut-stretching deep breaths, and make a conscious decision to start your day over, as silly and simplistic as it sounds, I swear, it actually works.  It doesn't turn your life into an episode of "The Twilight Zone" (man, first Doris Day and now the "Twilight Zone" -- I need to get some cultural references that are at least from the same century we're currently living in)  but it does, more often than not, snap your mental state out of its calamitous free fall into self-centered fear. (Which, if you're an alcoholic who's feeling the panic creep in as your day begins to seem like a Test that you're Failing, I would like to humbly suggest is the mechanism that fuels your rising panic: Selfish, self-centered fear.)

You can even announce your Do Over to the people around you (see entry above: Man, Odd).  Who the hell doesn't identify with a day that started badly, for whatever reason.  Announce you're starting over and sometimes even the people who've been contributing to your sucky day might sort of reboot themselves.  (And come on, it can hardly make things worse.)

Alcoholics are prone to very black-and-white thinking.  When my day is going badly, I think that's all there is -- I might not immediately be able to remember all the great spiritual tools that AA has laid at my feet (to paraphrase the Big Book) -- some days not only am I not "rocketed into the fourth dimension" some days I can't even find the rocket.

But something as simple as Do Over?  I've got a shot at remembering this -- so if things are crap and I'm starting to do stuff I'll just have to make amends for later, I start the whole damn day over.

You are not sentenced to having a bad day.  You don't have to listen to the alcoholic voice in your head, which pounces on any negative evidence about you or your life and leaps to its feet with a great "Ah HA!"

The most profound shift in an alcoholic's day can be a shift in viewpoint -- or, if you like perspective.  (And if you're familiar with AA literature, or a regular Mr. SponsorPants reader, you know that when viewing things through a 12 Step lens another word for perspective is humility -- if the day is going to hell, try not to view things as if your life were an Opera by Wagner, with everybody dead by the final curtain.  Consider that it's just another day and maybe you are not the center of the Universe. I know, how rude!)

Again, you are not stuck with the day as it's going.  If it's not going well you can start your day over at any time.

Keep that idea in your back pocket, kids -- it can really come in handy.

Cheers!

Prayer #14

Dear God,

I know that "Why?" is not a spiritual question, but... why isn't it?

Or rather, I suppose all questions can be considered spiritual in one form or another, but You do not seem to be in the "because" business, God, so asking "Why?" -- be it in a prayer or in a panic -- seems a futile exercise.

You gave us minds to reason, so how can we not ask You (or the Universe or The Fates or Whomever) "Why?" and not feel frustrated at the lack of response.

God, please help me not rush to fill the silence but rather to live in it calmly -- to wait, to listen, to let my questioning mind query and to let my (often guarded) heart remain open to different answers, or better yet, to live in peace with none at all.

Shooters - Quick shots from Meetings

"I get to the meeting an hour early and make the coffee.  After about half an hour people start strolling in.  Everyone's got something from Starbucks.  I don't care though.  It gets me to the meeting.  I know some days if I didn't have that stupid commitment I wouldn't have come."