"A Walking Miracle...." I was strongly reminded and deeply touched this day that all of us in recovery are "Walking Miracles."  As a friend sent me this morning a two year sobriety birthday thanksgiving and blessing, even as the sun was rising, I was responding to an alcohol related emergency call in the exact same emergency room that I was in two years ago today for my alcohol related injury....that's sobering, literally. And it is with a greatful heart and hundreds of meetings, heart-felt sponsor talks, and  thousands of other walking-miracle-stories that I can even write these words this morning.

Despite our roller-coaster days in recovery, the sun is rising for each of us, and God's grace continues to shine through. I am again reminded of the words of the amazing "prophet" and humble priest Henri J.M. Nouwen, who coined the famous phrase that was a brilliant light in his vulnerable life:  "The Walking Wounded Have Become The Wounded Healers."  Thank you, wounded healers and walking miracles. I am so grateful that I can walk with you and we can walk together in healing others as we've been healed.

peace, blessings and strength!
Ken/pr

Tags: Miracles Saved Protected Wounded-healer

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Why do I have to work today when I just want to live and breath and share recovery stuff???

Why do I have to think so hard in doing my job, when I can see the Twelve Promises unfolding in my life???

Why can't I just run away with my recovery friends and stay there, on the other side of addiction and cravings???

I'm not exactly sure, but....probably because "recovery," like life, is lived out amidst the busyness of my work and difficulty of my job.....perhaps causing the promises to rise to the surface......

......but I would still like to run away with my recovery friends and stay there...

Tags: Just Doing It...Facing The Day...Living Our Recovery Lives

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As I was running to and fro today, sort of with my head cut off but with my heart intact, I received a poem from a blessed recovery friend who put words to such "scattered ministry" by any and all of us in recovery who are just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread...and where to find the Living Bread.......

__________________________________________

A Message on the Road

  One day
  I will come, and bring a message.

  I will pour light into veins.
  And will cry out: O’ whose baskets are full of sleep!
  I brought you apples, the red apple of the sun

  I will present to the beggar a jasmine flower.
  I will give the pretty leper woman a gift of earrings.
  I will tell the blind man: The garden is so spectacular!
  I will be a peddler, peddle through alleys and cry out:
  Dew, dew, dew.
  A passerby will say: honestly, tonight is a dark night,
  I will give her the Milky Way.
  There is a legless girl on the bridge,
  I will put a constellation of stars around her neck.

  I will take away all the curses on the lips.
  I will tear down all the walls.

Tags: "The Least Of These" The Blessed Fringe The Poor In Spirit

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I was blessed to be able to visit overnight my 83 year old mother this past weekend, recovering from knee replacement surgery.....She's an amazing, gifted "wounded healer" that has brought me, through a lifetime of prayer, to much of where I am at in my life. She also just lost her younger brother, whom she loved dearly and is grieving that loss also....

She was a gifted nurse for 50 years, then retired and got her certification to be a Reflexologist, messaging clients feet and assisting in their healing and recovery....Before her recent surgery, she had up to 8 clients a week..

She had some literature on table that she pointed out to me---it was  helping her to grieve.....As I read through it, part of a poem entitled "For A Dear One At a Dark Time," by Arlene Gay Levine, caught my eye. Let me share the last two paragraphs.....

If I could urge you to inhale despite your clenched chest
You'd be healed by the green tonic of mown grass
Or even the humble aroma of a potato baking in the oven
just for you.

If I could, I would teach you to taste the salt of your tears and explore their source
To feel the jagged edges of your newly broken heart and with those same hands,
Use the thread of your pain to sew a stronger version whole again.

Tags: Healing Wounded Healer

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"Overheard in an Orchard"

Said the Robin to the Sparrow:

    "I should really like to know

Why these anxious human beings

    Rush about and worry so."

Said the Sparrow to the Robin:

    "Friend, I think that it must be

That they have no Heavenly Father

    Such as cares for you and me."

Tags: Trust Contentment Peace.....nature

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A beautiful spiritual thing emerged from a recovery meeting this morning when the discussion went towards steps 2 and 3, our Higher Power, prayer, and how to daily live out what we believe.
It was a simple prayer to God as we understand Him:

1)  God, go before me and prepare the way;
2)  Help me get out of the way;
3)  And help me not run away....

How awesome!  Our Amazing, gracious, powerful Higher Power, through our prayers, goes before us to prepare the way, whatever we need to do or accomplish....He helps us to get out of the way so He can work....And, when we see Him working, empowering us and others, He will help us not run away.....but stay...grow, heal, thrive, and continue to do for us and in us what we cannot do for ourselves....what an awesome God!

Tags: Letting God...Letting Go....Let God Work...Get Out Of God's Way

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Had a bad problem with skunks the last month---our lawn barely survived!  In 23 years at the same house and same yard we never had that problem before. I’m not a pest-control expert, but something tells me the reason we had the problem this year is because part of our lawn is the worst it’s been in 23 years. The city put in water and sewer a decade ago, tearing up the street and half our front yard. They replaced our beautiful grass with cheap crab-grass-kind-of-stuff that has multiplied 10 fold, despite our use of every other year chem-lawn kind of service….

…They only come out at night. Not just one skunk, but now, a family of skunks. And why do they come? To dig grubs out of our yard….And where do they dig for them? Under the worst, faded, slightly brown grass? And whose yard on the block, one of the few without a sprinkler system, has the worst grass? Ours. So, what is probably the only yard on the block where almost each morning reveals another new section of the aftermath of dirt piles everywhere from the skunk family flowing through?  That’s correct! darn THOSE SKUNKS! 

So what do you do?  We’ve left big flood lights on all night---our neighbors like that... (our neighbor down the trail had the same problem and has loud music come through outdoor speakers at all hours of the night and it sounds and looks like a prisoner of war camp); I’ve gone out at all hours of the night with a BB gun; my wife wants me to borrow a 22 pistol from my sponsor but that would be messy, not to mention very smelly and very illegal in our neighborhood and probably a felony….

So what do we do? The pest control seemed cost-prohibitive because they had to come out twice to get the job done. Our lawn people said they would come out and put on a “gurbicide spray” which would kill the grubs which would eliminate the reason for the skunks to come in the first place. That was two weeks ago and we haven’t seen any since….

So, my recovery application is that the poor crab grass that multiplies over the years and brings the varmints that destroys my life are my poor habits, lack of meetings, relapse,  lack of growing in the 12-steps and receiving the life-giving 12 promises that bring the richest, thickest, and beautiful groomed life-lawn on the block……and after 23 years, my neighbors will be amazed (“before we’re half through”) and blessed, and the value of their homes (and lives) might even increase!

Tags: Problems Struggles Life Erosion

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Brilliant Fall Colors…..living in Minnesota, my Christmas wish would be 3 months of each season…..obviously we have distinct seasons but the only problem is that the winter is twice as long as all the others……Spring---4-6 weeks, Summer---3 months or so, Fall—4-6 weeks (MAX), Winter---that leaves about 4-6 months on any given year….I’m not using the “s” word just yet (SNOW) but the weather people always say that we have our most snow in March, but last year we had two 12-16 inch snowfalls in the first and second weeks of April!!!! So, yes, it keeps the bugs down and the “rif-raf” out of the state, but, oh for 3 months of blissful Fall! Tonight might be the first hard freeze and the brilliant fall colors will burst forth even more brightly---stunning, as we coast into Indian Summer, hoping that the first measurable snowfall will not be like Halloween a few years ago when we got almost 20 inches of snow……the snow never left that winter…in the spring I found and ate perfectly preserved Halloween candy in my front yard! (well, one piece of gum)

What the heck does that have to do with recovery? Sober Fun? Our Creator’s awesome color palette shared with His beloved? For me though, it means the “cold season” the “frozen” and “frigid times” of deep cold, isolation, brokenness, nothingness, bottom-ness, in my life that, through grace and gracious, life-giving Steps of AA and NA---amazing BRILLIANT Colors are emerging!

Tags: Beauty In The ColdFreezing

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I was reminded at a meeting this week about the deep connection between anger and fear.....it's often said that behind the strongest anger is the deepest fear.....That came home as we began our meeting, as always, asking if anyone needed a few minutes time to process something heavy on their heart that was affecting their sobriety....

...A regular member with almost 3 years sobriety shared that she was so close to relapsing last night because she was physically threatened by another and felt so much anger, because she felt so much fear.....She only managed not to drink by "hanging" on the phone with friends for hours, calling the police, and getting the offender locked up only to fear more from retaliation....but she felt so relieved after sharing and receiving the groups support, prayers and caring.....As the meeting continued and went around the 20 some present, most were touched by the sharing and filtered it into their own recovery....The end results again demontrated the power of the group as much greater than the sum of it's parts......

I pray for a deeper understanding of my anger that is an outgrowth of my deeper fears....before it turns more strongly inward and manifests itself in depression.

Tags: Sharing Support Meetings

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