Nary a one of you reading this is stumped by how to finish this sentence. No matter what path we have traveled to this point in our journey, we have heard that as certain doors close, new ones always open. It's a principle we can count on. And the new doors are always leading us to the next better place for us to be to experience that next level of knowledge or a deeper spiritual awareness or perhaps a detour that, at first, seems like a wrong turn but ends up being exactly where we had always hoped to go but hadn't dared to reveal to any one. The real[...]
5 I heard a speaker yesterday talk about the importance of letting the other people in our lives know that they are making a difference to us. We can do this in myriad ways. Obviously we can say thank you. We can make eye contact and smile. We can send a note of gratitude. Even an e-mail counts. We can reach out and physically touch our fellow travelers in a loving way. That's one of my favorites. I like to reach out and offer a hand or a hug to the person who stands before me. I get great satisfaction giving away that which I also want to receive.[...]
I had the opportunity to "carry the message" to a large audience at The Recovery Church in St. Paul this past week. I talked about detachment which is the topic of my newest book, (Let Go Now: Embracing Detachment). I have come to recognize it as an extremely key concept in learning how to live more peacefully among our fellow-travelers, and not just those who walk with us on this recovery path. Every day we interact with dozens of people, many we know, of course; but there are many strangers in our lives too, people at the grocery, the doctor's office, the[...]
On Sunday, Jo Campe, the minister at The Recovery Church in St. Paul asked us to think about our character defects. I don't know about you but I hate to think about my character defects, particularly the one that's pointed out to me on a regular basis. However, I know that admitting to defects, and to this one in particular, is the only way I can hope to get free of its grip. My primary defect continues to be control. Plain and simple! I hate to admit to still having this defect after three and a half decades of recovery as a "Double Winner." I'm embarr[...]
In the state of Minnesota, September is Recovery Month. Perhaps it is in other states too. If so, maybe some one will write and educate me about that. In any case, in Minnesota it's a big deal. There are breakfasts with special speakers, fairs, social events of myriad kinds; and the last day of the month included a Twins Baseball Game with a local celebrity, Don Shelby, hosting the event. A few hundred of us were sprinkled in the upper decks. The seats weren't great but the atmosphere was fabulous. I have not been a regular at Twins games since firs[...]
I just spent six days on the west coast, working and seeing college friends. I arrived home at midnight on Monday night. It's Thursday now and I'm finally feeling "normal." As I have aged I realize that any travel is a bit more tiring, particularly when one's body has to adjust for the change in time. One wouldn't think a two hour difference would matter much, but it does to this body of mine. My time in San Diego moderating and presenting at the Hazelden Womens' Healing Conference, an event I have been participating in with great enthusiasm for a dozen[...]
It's a gift, perhaps, but it's a terribly hard gift to be grateful for if we have just had a truck accident like the one my nephew had a few days ago. (see the blog on "split second" to get the details) How could that be a gift, you might say? How I explain a situation like that to myself is to believe that a great lesson was being offered even within the accident. The lesson might have been: the value of sleep can't be underestimated. Or that letting your eyes waver from the road, even for a nanosecond, can lead to disaster. Or maybe the lesson is that Ed[...]
And the rest of the above line in one of my favorite books is: "each time there is a choice to make." Perhaps uncertainty doesn't ever trouble you. And I am relieved to say it troubles me very little any more, but it used to haunt me. I just knew there had to be only one way to do every thing and it was up to me to figure it out. Alone. I hadn't yet made a friend of God. The idea that God could be one's friend seemed a bit childish in fact. It reminded me of my Sunday School teacher's words when I was in grade school. Surely my level of sophistica[...]
This may seem like a "light-weight" entry today but I am frequently entranced by the dogs next door to me. Both are big; one is a blonde Lab and the other a Wheaton Terrier. They play like children. Perhaps better than children. I never see them fight. I sit in my study most days for a few hours and they romp right outside my window. Brandy and Hunter are their names. They seldom bark unless someone is going by their house on foot. And then it's not a ferocious bark, but much more like "I see you out there." There is an invisible fence around the[...]
Eddie, my young nephew, a 17 year old high school senior, was injured in a terrible automobile accident two days ago in Lafayette, Indiana. He was driving to school in the early AM, fell asleep at the wheel of his white Ford pick up, and hit a dump trunk head on. Were it not for seat belts and air bags, he'd not have survived. Fortunately the man in the dump trunk was wearing a seat belt too and he walked away unharmed. Eddie wasn't so lucky. He will be recovering for some time. But he's alive. He's still alive. Perhaps he needs to get to bed earlie[...]