************************************************************
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison!
Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison!
Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows!
--Allen Ginsberg, Howl (1955)
************************************************************
Who dared to be the judge, jury and executioner of his own sick brother?
--Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (141)
************************************************************
Would I have it? Of course I would!...At long last I saw, I felt, I believed. Scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes. A new world came into view.
--Alcoholics Anonymous (12:2)
************************************************************
21-Aug-15: Happy Friday everyone!
The first 39 years of my life were squandered looking a glass, and darkly. Obscured by 'pomp, calamity, and worship of other things', scales of 'pride & prejudice' tainted my every thought, word and deed. Suffering from a crippling loneliness only an alcoholic can know, I unwittingly fortified myself in a self constructed prison of my own making.
We spoke yesterday how Jung recognized that alcoholism was nothing more than a thirst for unity, for God if you will. What I did not know is that as an unrecovered alcoholic I was perpetually, pathologically! separating myself from my self, my God and my brother, one judgement at a time. For lack of a better term I was an opinion machine. And very few of them were good.
The problem is - we don't know we have opinions. To the unrecovered alcoholic, the way we see things, are, well, just the way things are. This is why completing the ninth step is such a critical milestone in the recovery from alcoholism. Upon completion of this vital step, for one oh-so-brief moment in time - a true singularity occurs in our spiritual journey - our self-constructed prison of judgment is vaporized. Sure, 'the wordily clamors rush back in', but we get a really big whiff of what's waiting for us in that hallowed and serene universe where judgment is suspended. It is only then that I can see things as the way they really are. You doing your best, my brother doing his best, and God doing what God does best - everything. Everything that happens to all of us all the time is perfect.
For forty five minutes each morning and each night, I am afforded the privilege of my eleventh step practice, which allows me - even for a brief moment - to have ALL MY JUDGEMENT suspended. There such is a terrific freedom in that, for as ideas come to me throughout the day, I am able - in real time - to ask myself if my 'new idea' is really new, the loud echo of 'the sound from the ground', or if it is an old idea. As sentence ourselves as prisoners in our self-constructed prisons of untreated alcoholism, we slip loose our shackles with the judicious use and rapid application of steps ten, eleven and twelve.
The first 39 years of my life were squandered looking a glass, and darkly. Obscured by 'pomp, calamity, and worship of other things', scales of 'pride & prejudice' tainted my every thought, word and deed. Suffering from a crippling loneliness only an alcoholic can know, I unwittingly fortified myself in a self constructed prison of my own making.
We spoke yesterday how Jung recognized that alcoholism was nothing more than a thirst for unity, for God if you will. What I did not know is that as an unrecovered alcoholic I was perpetually, pathologically! separating myself from my self, my God and my brother, one judgement at a time. For lack of a better term I was an opinion machine. And very few of them were good.
The problem is - we don't know we have opinions. To the unrecovered alcoholic, the way we see things, are, well, just the way things are. This is why completing the ninth step is such a critical milestone in the recovery from alcoholism. Upon completion of this vital step, for one oh-so-brief moment in time - a true singularity occurs in our spiritual journey - our self-constructed prison of judgment is vaporized. Sure, 'the wordily clamors rush back in', but we get a really big whiff of what's waiting for us in that hallowed and serene universe where judgment is suspended. It is only then that I can see things as the way they really are. You doing your best, my brother doing his best, and God doing what God does best - everything. Everything that happens to all of us all the time is perfect.
For forty five minutes each morning and each night, I am afforded the privilege of my eleventh step practice, which allows me - even for a brief moment - to have ALL MY JUDGEMENT suspended. There such is a terrific freedom in that, for as ideas come to me throughout the day, I am able - in real time - to ask myself if my 'new idea' is really new, the loud echo of 'the sound from the ground', or if it is an old idea. As sentence ourselves as prisoners in our self-constructed prisons of untreated alcoholism, we slip loose our shackles with the judicious use and rapid application of steps ten, eleven and twelve.
What a wonderful life we have in AA
I love you all. Thank you for my life.
Yours in love and service,
--COG, 1st Class.
************************************************************
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Welcome as a witness to a fools journey out of the darkness. I welcome all tidings - you are all my teachers on this path toward a meaningful and purposeful sobriety.
COG, 1st Cl.