Connections

 Meditation, the silence and solitude of it, is not simply to make one a  less crazy person.  This would be too individualistic.  It is to inform your occupation and profession.  That is, even unemployed, retired, living in leisure, you are part of a greater world in your daily occupations.  When I get in my car or go out on an errand or just for a walk, I am entering a world larger than myself.  How do I respond to someone else in that world?  Ignore them?  Compete with them for mutual services such as queue lines for purchase of something?  How do I see other people?  As other and an obstacle to my getting what I want as quickly and conveniently as possible?  Do I compete with workers or cooperate?  Even on-line computer work can have an inclusive attitude toward others in cyberspace.  I think that meditation can help to keep the focus from being only on “ME.”

Beyond Self

 One way to get beyond the self and into the world of the common good, is to bypass the greater good.  Why?  Well, the greater good might be greater for a few people, but not for everyone.  In the world of consumption, production, investment and distribution, the greater good is for whom?  Often for those who have plenty of good already, and at the expense of the many who are still lacking.  When making decisions do you seek the advice of others who might be affected by your singular want or what you think is right?  Or are you open to the common good, the group conscience?  You need go no further than the business meeting of a group of sober ex-drunks to see the example of the common good rather than the greater good.  Greater is too often for the individual and not for the group or society.  

The Painter

 My sister is a painter.  She even belongs to a League of Painters.  They paint pictures, not houses.  But you cannot just want to paint.  Nothing happens with simply wanting.  She has talent, but talent does not paint.  It is in the category of potential.  She has to have a certain life-style.  Like what?  Like a space for painting in her house.  Then she has to buy the materials and set them in the space.  Then she has to consciously choose a life that gives her time to paint.  That is a lot of work before she even puts pencil to paper for an outline.  Then she has to practice just like a pianist does on the piano.  Sometimes it may be boring or a mess or going nowhere, but the painter does not give up.  Inspiration comes to those who set their life for it.  So how much effort, time, lifestyle and money do you put into your goals?  And are they for the good of others?

Up For Sale

 Yesterday, in the local Aspen newspaper, the front page story was that our monastery in Old Snowmass was up for sale.  The asking price is $150 million.  The monastery has 3600 acres of ranch and buildings.  It is in expensive Pitkin County.  So now that it is official, in the news, people are really sad, or curious enough to finally come up the seven miles from the highway to see the place.  As a Trappist monastery, it will be no more.  But as a ranch and a place for retreat and quiet, a spiritual center, if you will, I believe it will go on.  The new owners will be much better marketers and advertisers than the Trappists ever were.  The Trappists have not made any effort to let anyone know they are here since they stopped selling eggs decades ago in the local stores.  They don’t even wear their habits when they go anywhere.  The In Crowd, the ones who come here regularly, will miss individual Trappists with whom they have made friends, and the atmosphere of “Catholic” whatever that might mean to them.  Most of these people are pretty old, like their Trappist friends, and it is time to move on.  God is in charge and God has a plan.  Believe in Resurrection, that is change, on a radical scale.  If you want the same old, same old, you are looking only at the past.  

Goal-Changing

 One way you know that your life is going in the wrong direction, is that you change your goals to meet your life.  Maybe you had lofty goals, but then your life behavior went downhill, into self-destruction.  But you don’t want to admit this, because of pride, fear, ego-inflation, so you simply change your goals, you downsize your future so that you don’t have to change your destructive behavior.  People in recovery have been there and done that.  Their lives were filled with loss so they simply changed their goals.  Those losses were not all that important.  But anyone can suffer this goal-changing behavior.  So ask yourself, if you changed your goals, why?  And if you are honest enough, you might get a second opinion from someone who might know of your situation. Don’t try to live life alone.  

Price Of Loss

 Recovery can teach anyone about a lot of things.  Example:  a bottom is when the next thing you are about to lose is more important than drinking.  What to learn?  Well, say you are thinking of suicide in the midst of a miserable life at that moment.  It is a life in that moment full of feelings of fear, despair, hopelessness, and self-pity for instance.  Your future is all behind you.  But you don’t do more damage at that moment because you decide that living is more important than dying.  You don’t have to be an alcoholic to have the above feelings of emptiness.  Newcomers to AA know these feelings, but come into the rooms because they decided to live or feared dying more than that next drink.  What is important is that you reach out and contract someone, such as suicide prevention or even 911.  Let someone in who can help you.  This could be a first step in spirituality.  

Honesty

 Honesty is not easy.  It is not painless.  It generally invites change.  Change from what we thought was important, who we thought we were, even the rutted pattern of our daily life.  If you are a Jesus believer, he says, “Where I am you must be.”  You might be a believer, but you are only working from the mind, the creed.  Honesty will generally tell you that you are anywhere but where Jesus is.  Your prayer is for him to give you what you want in your set of priorities.  His plea is to change your life.  If you are in recovery, page 58 of the Big Book, the chapter on “How It Works,” honesty shows up three time on that first page.  You have to change, but cannot if you won’t admit you need it, and maybe are clueless how to do it.  Honesty is surrender for believers and non-believers.  This is painful.  But traveling the wrong road for you, being who you are not, is worse.