Mr. SponsorPants

And I deduced the killer's identity as well. As I say, old chap, most satisfying.

 

 

 

 

The Professor and I had gone to a Meeting, then out to dinner, and then back to his house to watch a BBC detective show we'd both been following. He had been kind enough to record the last several episodes for me.  In keeping with the theme, rather than after dinner coffee we were enjoying some tea while the drama unfolded onscreen.

 

The PROFESSOR: So do you know who the killer is?

Mr. SPONSORPANTS: Well, I've got it narrowed down to a few suspects...

I laid out my theories and he was suitably impressed.

PROF: You're good at this!

Mr. SP: My mother was a great one for mysteries.  And westerns.  You already know who did it though, don't you.

PROF: Yes, I cheated, I've already watched the end.  But I want to watch it again to see what clues I missed.

The Detective Inspector prowled the seashore, checking alibis and searching for answers. Suspects were eliminated. One -- easily identified as the Red Herring in the story -- died as a result of scandal uncovered during the investigation.  The little town paused to mourn, and most turned out to attend the funeral.

Mr. SP: Have you ever thought about your funeral?

The Professor barked a laugh.

PROF:  That, and the AA Memorial.

Now it was my turn to chuckle. 

Mr. SP: What's that old joke about the alcoholic's ego? "At the wedding we all want to be the bride and at the funeral we all want to be the corpse."  Do you have any specific instructions for your service?

PROF: No, not really.  The school would probably do something too.

I nodded and sipped my tea.  During the funeral onscreen the town's Pastor scolded the community for their judgments of the deceased and each other.

PROF: What about you?

Mr. SP: Hmm?

PROF: A lot of specific instructions for your memorial, some day?

Mr. SP: A few, I suppose.

PROF:  Burial or cremation?

He looked at me over the lip of his mug as he took a sip.  It didn't have the body of after-dinner coffee, but it was a very pleasant tea.

Mr. SP: Burial or Cremation? Neither!

PROF: Neither? Then what...?

Mr. SP: Taxidermy! By God, man, if you've got something to say about me at my Memorial then you can say it to my face!

I had half-way shouted this, as though leading a charge of troops over a hill; pounding the arm of my chair for emphasis.

The resultant spit take, in which The Professor's tea shot out of his mouth, was most satisfying.

I think a little came out of his nose too.

Most satisfying.

 _________________________________________________________________

 

There is more sober silliness like this in "Mr. SponsorPants: Adventures in Sobriety and The 12 Steps for AA's and Others."  Available as an eBook on Kindle via Amazon.  Download a Kindle reader for free on any device or platform, from PC to Smartphone, and enjoy eBooks anywhere you have time to read.

 

why I need meetings #56

 

 

 

 

 

 

sometimes, still.

but meetings adjust the volume.

 

 

forgiveness equals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Questions via Email: What's the point of praying if you're not going to get anything?

 

 

Dear Mr. SponsorPants,

You wrote before about giving up on a God that rewards you. I don't understand. Isn't the point of praying to get an answer or something from a HP? 

D.C.

 

Dear D.C.

I hope you will forgive me the liberty of boiling your email down to its main question.  Gonna be four bullet points in this.  Ready?  Here we go:

 

• When AA suggests you seek a connection to a God "as you understand God" the main idea behind the "as you understand" part is that you don't need to subscribe to the beliefs or ideas anyone in your past (or present) has about who/what God is or how the Universe works. The good deal is that you're praying.  Keep praying! No matter what the Cosmic Deal is, prayer is not a bad thought cycle for the human brain. And whatever belief you have is absolutely, 100% awesome and powerful and effective and will help you stay sober.  If you have a God which gives you answers then that is absolutely viable.  Common sense and AA literature suggest that you loop some level headed, trustworthy sober folks in on what kinds of answers you might be getting, but in no way am I suggesting your connection to your HP is not true and right for you.  My experience is that my ideas about God -- and thus, my sense of connection to God and the Universe and my beliefs about how it all interacts -- have evolved over time.  That doesn't make what I believed before any less valid than what I believe now.  All of my relationships in life have evolved (deepened, gotten smarter, stronger, different...) as I've gotten older and stayed sober.  Why wouldn't the one I have with my HP do so too? So let my -- and other people's -- beliefs give you food for thought, but don't trouble yourself over much if they don't line up right now with your ideas about prayer and God. The point for us all is that we keep seeking, not that we begin understanding.

 

• For me, the point of prayer is to strengthen my connection with whatever the Divine might be, and to help change myself so that I can better align with the principles of love and service, no matter the circumstance or the people involved.  A tall order for this alcoholic.  Lotta prayer required to get me there.  Still working on it.  As I've said a lot here, it's not the "because" I seek anymore (in the way of "answers") it's the "how" I'm asking about.  Again, for me, that approach has been far more effective and brought me much more peace. But I'll be honest with you; sometimes that path can feel a tiny bit short on comfort.
  

 

• When I talk about a God that rewards (or punishes) me I am talking about very old ideas I had about how the Universe worked. In fact, I realize now that I was (understandably) frightened by the idea of a world in which anything could happen -- and equally fearful of a God who might give me hard or mean lessons "for my own good." To deal with this fear I created -- from both traditional theology and just good old superstition -- a belief that if I was "good," i.e. "sober" then God would, if not give me stuff, then at least prevent bad things from happening to me.  In this way I see now that I was trying to control God and the Universe. It was my loophole in the 3rd Step.  Sort of my secret clause in the fine print at the bottom of the prayer:  "God, I offer myself to Thee... as long as what Thou art going to do with me is nice and not scary and always comfortable and good.  If Thou agrees, then please initial on the line by the addendum, and you can see that I have initialed here by the clause that in exchange I will be a Good Boy now. Thank You."

 

• Recently I heard in a meeting that one definition of sobriety is that you start cooperating with the Universe.  That really resonates for me.  I believe that if I follow AA's spiritual principles -- which are in essence much the same as the spiritual principles at the heart of most great schools of thought and theologies -- that I will align myself with what might be commonly called Spiritual Laws. (While it's a whole other discussion as to what those Laws might actually be, that they exist is a safe common ground most of us can meet on, I believe.)  Lately I've come to think of it this way:  If you scrape the barnacles from the bottom of a boat, clean the deck, tighten the ropes, mend and then raise the sails, you will have put yourself in the best possible alignment with the natural forces of wind and water and your boat will likely sail forward as it was built to do, at its best speed and stability.  But it would be strange to say that the wind rewarded your boat. You did the footwork and the natural laws which are in place (whether you can see them or not, whether you believe in them or not, whether you can explain them or not) kicked in and your footwork gave you a result. I trust that God has built a Universe with Spiritual Laws which govern my soul's footwork in much the same way Natual Laws govern my body and the material world around me. It makes God no less a partner with me, no less caring, but it puts the responsiblity for enlarging my spiritual experience squarely on me.

 

Words, words, words... I fear these God discussions can bring out the weird and the windbag in me (to keep with the theme above). The bottom line is that if you keep praying, and you keep seeking, your sobriety will bloom and you pretty much can't go wrong.  We don't pick up the first drink and we keep seeking.  The rest sort of falls into place if you keep coming back.

And I pray you do.

 

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

_________________________________________________________

There are more essays like this one in "Mr. SponsorPants: Adventures in Sobriety and The 12 Steps for AA's and Others."  Available as an eBook on Kindle via Amazon.  Download a Kindle reader for free on any device or platform, from PC to Smartphone, and enjoy eBooks anywhere you have time to read.

 

 

aren't your fault

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry it's just that,

for some of us this is

much easier

said

than done.

 

Especially when it's not that we feel responsible for things that aren't our fault -- though that's true some of the time we apologize needlessly -- but that we use a false apology to manipulate or as a kind of faux courteous self-permission to sneak up on saying something rather than just clearly stating it.

 

Doubt it? Try it.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes.

It is true.

Things I learned (or was reminded of) this week: Optimism

 

 

 

 

Optimism is a powerful force; ultimately more motivating and constructive than fear.

 

Optimism is not necessarily unrealistic.  Especially when grounded in willingness and faith.

 

Optimism can change everything about footwork, making it ultimately energizing rather than tiring.

 

Optimism fosters an open mind and the ability to see new connections and possibilities.

 

Optimism only irritates (or threatens?) those who are stuck in fear.

 

 

_______________________________________________

Very excited! Flying off to speak this weekend at an AA celebration for the anniversary of an Alano Club in a part of the country I've never visited!  Sober adventures!  New Friends!  Airport Security!

Wait... maybe not so excited about that last one.  Unless I make some new friends at Airport Security... but if that happens, I suspect the pat down or body scan will have gotten a touch out of hand.

Cheers!

 

why I need meetings #14

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the things we can't change

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course,

the degree to which I find this process painful

is the exact degree to which I resist it.

 

"I learned that lesson the first time through!" said no alcoholic ever.

 

 

Sometimes you fall down