Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

May 10

THE 24 HOUR GOD

Matching a loving God to the horrors of my past has proved impossible for me. Projecting a connection to an all-powerful God of the ever-foreshortening future seems implausible. In today, I see a nurturing God. Not an all purpose God, not a God who serves all. In my life, there is a God I trust today. Each morning, when I wake, it is a pleasant surprise to find a God. Not an expansive God, not a God to fit the continuum, but a nice neat God who fits right in this 24.


Lift your fingers to your scars and feel the gratitude.

*
Box-a-week Tao


I am going through so many changes
surrounding the cleaning out and getting rid of process.
The flat sided panic that I experience
while even attempting the smallest disposal seems impossible.

I would deny it if I didn't have the repetition
of this experiment to prove it as fact.
I have now moved into the part of the illness
where I compulsively clean the things that I have emptied
in order to avoid facing the next step, the next box, the next mess.

This is a two part trap:
Part 1. If cleaning can absorb all the time
I will not be able to do anything else.

Part 2. If I can't keep it clean enough
then I have an excuse to give up
and not empty the next space.

I am trying to keep moving without being mean to myself.
Because mean is worse than mess.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

May 11



ON-COMING

Anticipation of the approaching traffic consumes. The tiny spec grows and develops into the arriving vehicle. 50 miles per and the rapid succession of the coming and those leaving eats quickly at my heart. The pain seers me. Why are these who travel from the direction of my destination passing me by? For miles and miles, they appear to be greeters. The breeze created by their passing chaps my face and I question my goals. How can so many abandon my objective? But flee it they do. My hunger does not diminish and I press on. Of course if we all went this way, we might tip the globe. Maybe that’s what they fear.


Smile with your eyes, laugh with your hands, rest your heart, ease your mind.

*


Be That Girl

I have tried to protect the investment I made in the past
by selling the soul of my future.
I arrived self-possessed, a winning girl,
but I slid the self from the scene leaving me simply possessed.

I gained everything then lost it a piece at a time
starting with the parts nearest my heart.
I must draw the shards together once more
and mend this lovely crystal.

The art of living is insured by my action
not by grasping at slivers in terror
of what slips from my fingers.

I am what I have inviolate
and all else comes to fruition when I am pleased;
when I am myself.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

May 12



MY SOBER HEART

The heart I have today is not the heart I have had all my life. Cells age and are replaced. I slough off what I can no longer use and rejuvenate with fresh layers. My sobriety is the same. Past step work is revamped and approached in innovative ways. Yesterday's prayers are replaced with today’s; today’s meditations will be dispelled by tomorrow’s. The function remains the same but it is constructed with brand new work. Service I render is always for my sobriety but I work to strengthen various quadrants. My heart is not as young as it used to be and vigorous action remakes it new each day. I rebuild my sober heart continually because forever and today I have the mind of an alcoholic.


Time your thinking so it can fire your mind.



*
No Stone Left Behind


An anchor attaches at the lower extremities stabilizing me,
an albatross is the thing weighing me down from the top,
it tips me, throws me to the ground.

I must remember to choose ferrous instruments
over long necked birds.
Often it’s not the amount of drag, but where it’s affixed.

There are so many variables,
so much to think through, yet I often react
and pick up what seems as harmless as a flock of sea gulls

And turns out to be worse than an iron maiden.
Leaving not tern unstoned is bad,
but do I really have the time to do it the other way around?


.

[Canela]

Thank you for posting this everyday. I don't always read it but then I wonder why not? I am a 12 stepper, and tonight I got home from my candlelight meeting so happy to be sober. I am grateful to be able to say that. Everytime I go to my home group I feel reenergized and strengthened up. Tonight was no different.

Thank you for posting the daily reflections. I am glad to be here.