Mr. SponsorPants

and if it's true for the world, then...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and if it's true for the world, then it's true for you, too.

you are not your disease,

or your disasters.

you are your recovery, 

and you are a miracle, because your past is not

your future.

 

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

 

 

...okay, sounds good. But how do I do that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How do I do that?

The answer is found on the bottom of page 66 and the top of page 67 of the book "Alcoholics Anonymous," AA's Big Book.

 

 

Gratitude Day: Two essays on gratitude, slightly revised, and reprinted by request.

 

 

 

 

 

 

no words can ever fully express

 

staying

sober

one day at a time

is a joyous and

pitiless

spiritual journey

containing rewards undreamt of

at the start;

(with just

a little bit of

grim tedium

too,

hidden among the days.)

 

for all my

mad, scrabbling ego,

my bizarre, relentless vanity

and my

occasionally compulsive

self destructive

tendencies

(and oh! how some days

I romance those dreary false glamours and

stale excitements)

I know with

bedrock

certainty

that

this stupid beautiful corny sweet clumsy cliche-ridden nearly perfect AA deal

is the best damn thing that

ever

happened

to

me.

 

how this damaged and foolish child

one day at a time

remains balanced on the ever cresting wave of spiritual transformation

and somehow keeps riding the miracle

is only for some Divine Agency to fully understand.

 

when I remember to break free from the

self-hypnosis

of my little schemes and

my little dreams

(like a dog shaking water from its coat)

and in my limited way try to comprehend the gift I've been given

my heart swells and I am grateful in a way no words can

ever

fully

express.

 

________________________________________________________

 

 

Gratitude Day: And my arm's still too short to box with God

 

Mr. SponsorPants:  Well God, it's Gratitude Day.

GOD:  Yup.

Mr. SP:  And, although I know I can essentially bring anything to You, I have a question that feels kind of... well, kind of stupid.

 

silence for a few moments

 

Mr. SP:  Ummm, God?

GOD:  Yes?

Mr. SP:  Aren't you going to say something encouraging like, 'There are no stupid questions' or 'yes, you can bring everything to Me' or something like that?

GOD:  No.  I don't think so.  You know I really don't go in for responding to you when you're fishing and being passive/aggressive like that.

Mr. SP:  God!  Err, I mean the exclamation, not You, but... God!  That is so... you know, sometimes maybe I need a little encouragement.  Sometimes maybe I'm frightened and I need a little reassurance.  Needing encouragement is not being passive/aggressive you know.

GOD:  Yes, I know.  You're right.

Mr. SP:  Ha!  So there!

GOD:  Needing encouragement or reassurance is not being passive/aggressive.  Being manipulative in your statement so that you can get that encouragement... that's passive/aggressive. 

Mr. SP:  <sigh>  How come when I start to talk with you about something else we keep taking these left turns?

GOD:  Because you're driving?  Just ask your question, Mr. SponsorPants.

Mr. SP:  Okay.  I wonder if sometimes I'm doing gratitude... wrong.

GOD:  You certainly come up with a constant stream of new and inventive ways to make yourself feel bad about yourself, Mr. SponsorPants.  How on earth could you do gratitude 'wrong'?

Mr. SP:  Well, sometimes I find my way into gratitude by <mumble mumble mumble>.

GOD:  What?  Speak clearly.

Mr. SP:  Sometimes I find my way into gratitude by looking at the misfortunes and challenges other people have, and I'm grateful that's not my lot -- that I do not have their problems.  That I do not suffer as they do or have to face down the things they must.  And that seems... I dunno, just... like the wrong way to go about feeling grateful for what I have.

GOD:  Ah.

 

silence for a few moments

 

Mr. SP:  That's it?  'Ah.'  All that and all you give me is 'Ah'?

GOD:  Mr. SponsorPants, I have a question for you, too.  Do you feel pleasure at the misfortunes of these others that you're comparing yourself to? 

Mr. SP:  What?  Of course not!  I mean, sometimes if it's a person that has really challenged me in the past...

GOD:  One of your Great Spiritual Teachers, you mean.

Mr. SP:  Yes.  If someone's been an arrogant schmuck, and they get a little egg on their face, maybe I feel a sense of cosmic justice, but I don't actually enjoy anyone's hardships, no. And when it comes to real tragedy I'm just... well, I land somewhere between horrified and terrified, actually.

GOD:  So you just use other people's challenges, their paths, as a frame of reference for yourself.

Mr. SP: Yes.

GOD: Or a way to see what you've been, if you'll forgive a somewhat Biblical term, 'spared.'

Mr. SP: God, I can't think of anyone whose got more of a right to throw Biblical terms around now and again than you.

GOD: Fair enough. But, to go back to the point, you use what happens to other people as a frame of reference.

Mr. SP:  Yes.

GOD:  Okay then.

Mr. SP:  Okay what?

GOD:  You're not asking if that's a wrong way to find gratitude, you already think it is, and you want maybe confirmation, or absolution. And maybe instruction.

Mr. SP:  Do other people get a headache when they talk to You?  'cause I'm starting to get a headache. I thought it was a simple question and...

GOD:  The question is simple. You're the complicated part.

Mr. SP:  Is that... kind of a compliment?

GOD:  No.

Mr. SP:  oh.

GOD:  Gratitude is, indeed, seeing what you have, and what you are spared, yes.  Whether you do that via comparing yourself to others' misfortunes, or through a more positive view of whatever bounty you have doesn't really matter.  The point is more that you are training yourself to perceive your life and your circumstances differently; to see the gifts in your life for what they are.  When you don't see what you have, you're focused on what you lack -- and when you do that, you are generally in Fear, and it is then much harder for you to hear Me.

Mr. SP:  oh.  So gratitude isn't about feeling good really, it's more about being able to see and hear You a little better.

GOD:  Pretty much, yes.

Mr. SP:  And so... as long as I'm doing that, it's okay however I get there.

GOD:  Bravo, Mr. SponsorPants.

Mr. SP:  See, God, if you stick with me, I get it eventually.

GOD:  Mr. SponsorPants, I have never, not for one single solitary moment, doubted you.  You on the other hand...

Mr. SP:  I know, I know... work in progress, God.  Work in progress.

GOD:  I know.  I know.  Happy Gratitude Day, Mr. SponsorPants.

Mr. SP:  You too, God.  You know, for a somewhat trite literary construct, these exchanges are very helpful and surprisingly emotional for me sometimes.

GOD:  I know that, too.

Mr. SP:  Of course you do.

 

 

 

 

 

5 Quotes by Elizabeth Gilbert

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the 'monkey mind' -- the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl.

 

 

But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilling yearnings.

 

Prayer is a relationship; half the job is mine. If I want transformation, but can't even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I'm aiming for, how will it ever occur? Half the benefit of prayer is in the asking itself, in the offering of a clearly posed and well-considered intention. If you don't have this, all your pleas and desires are boneless, floppy, inert; they swirl at your feet in a cold fog and never lift.

 

God never slams a door in your face without opening a box of Girl Scout cookies.

 

Om Namah Shivaya, meaning,
I honor the divinity that resides within me.

 

 

 

 

why I need meetings #12

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are people in meetings whom I've known for years.

We are as close as anyone who has affection and respect and mental and emotional intimacy might be.

I consider them close friends with whom I've had great deep belly laughs. And we have, at one time or another, been completely unguarded and vulnerable with one another.

Yet I only see them at meetings.

Not for any lack of interest on either part, it's just that we're... meeting friends. That's where our lives touch.

It is as powerful and important a friendship as any other in my life. 

And a big part of my AA medicine.

 

 

Shooters: Quick shots from meetings. Trying to be a learn-it-all

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

un-learning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

highly motivated - but some days

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to be a for real thing (random but heartfelt)

 

 

 

Ultimately,

when I pray,

I am asking God to actually show up in my life - to be a for real thing;

a kind of tangible intangible.

I don't need God

to be a noun.

An idea. I need God 

to be a verb. A force.

Not in a supernatural way, like a burning bush or magic bees (but still, that would be so cool), but in the gritty, substantive way of getting into my bones.

 

God, I'm asking: Please take up space and make some noise.

I'm not even afraid of that request anymore

(well... hardly even).

That's an old idea, anyway, that God making some noise in my life would result in something to be afraid of. 

Result in hardship? Sometimes. Maybe. 

Change? Very probably.

But it's my resistance to those things (however human and natural that resistance might be) which creates the pain. I actively reject (I mean it!) the idea of some harsh task master of a God who gives hard lessons to punish me for falling short or beats me into improving.

 

We are surrounded by messages which exhort us to Go! Do! Achieve! Seize the day! 

I have come to believe that the day often has some sharp edges to it.

Seizing the day can get you cut up, sometimes.

What if being so busy doing (achieving! earning!) what I am told I deserve (I deserve it!) is like a 

narcotic?

What if the hypnosis of the hamster wheel keeps me too spun to accept Divine assistance with actual for real down-in-my-gut, change?

Rather than try to seize the day,

rather than be consumed with my petty successes and failures, measured on a yardstick which doesn't even actually exist,

it's better to reach for a God who is (for real) working from my inside

out.

That God is a real.

force

in me.

 

 

 

harder to have an open mind