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A friend was telling me yesterday about how she felt overwhelmed by various forces in her life pulling her in a hundred different directions. She had so many things she had to do that she couldn't do anything. The resulting feeling of what I guess you could call besieged impotence had her parking in front of a liquor store, trying to decide whether to go in or to call another alkie. Luckily, she made the right decision. (Anyone wondering what the right decision was really needs to go to a meeting.)
One of the methods of execution used in medieval England was to tie the limbs of the victim to four horses and have them tear him apart. Our lives, or at least my life, can feel that way and it certainly seems like a good metaphor for what my friend was going through. I think I'm safe in saying that it's one of the worst feelings we regularly experience in today's world.
This morning, as I was thinking about all this, I was reminded of a couple of comments by Thomas Merton.
One of the methods of execution used in medieval England was to tie the limbs of the victim to four horses and have them tear him apart. Our lives, or at least my life, can feel that way and it certainly seems like a good metaphor for what my friend was going through. I think I'm safe in saying that it's one of the worst feelings we regularly experience in today's world.
This morning, as I was thinking about all this, I was reminded of a couple of comments by Thomas Merton.
The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence….and
Silence is the language of God -- all else is poor translation.As my friend reminded me, it is extremely hard to escape the innate violence of modern life and move into silence. It certainly is hard for me. I might be stretching here, but I wonder if making that escape is what the Third Step is all about. Somehow, we have to see the forces pulling at us as what they are, tiny ripples and eddies in the huge river we are a part of. It is when I can, however inadequately, actually experience that we are in and of what most people call God and surrender to that experience that I can enter the silence. When I do that it is wonderful. Why then do I so often choose the four horses and shout 'giddy-up' instead?
I had a similar conversation on this topic with another guy in the program recently. The topic was about the forgotten second part of the 1st Step, "-that our lives had become unmanageable".
ReplyDeleteThe topic started about depressions and how they can come after something has gone awry in our day/life and how it begins to affect us mentally, we dwell on it, and then in we find ourselves obsessing about it and our mood and emotions take a nose-dive.
Ultimately my position was that I see this as my trying to "manage" things in my life that I have no real power over. My depression comes as a result of my judging the situation as unsatisfactory, not being able to accept it as such, and then... basically... getting angry or pouting about it.
Anyway, the conversation took a turn and we began to discuss ways we could tell when we were "off the beam".
I find that if I am not actively doing some of the suggestion the Big Book makes in the 11th Step when I am upset, confused, angry, doubtful or any of the other negative states that plague me more than they do "normal people", then I am probably off the beam (or at the very least forgetting there is a beam).
On pages 86 to 88 the book makes some really valuable suggestions that, when I remember to do them, have never failed me. Here are two of my favorites that I use to check myself:
"In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don't struggle."
"As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day "Thy will be done." We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves."
Thanks for the reminder about pages 86 to 88, Dave. I especially love the second paragraph you quoted, "As we go through the day..." I get a bit of a kick out of picturing myself at work while I was drinking and recognizing that I was basically a seething mass of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity and foolish decisions. When I first got sober the Promises really didn't mean much to me but the idea of cutting down on this crap went straight to my heart.
ReplyDeleteI have always felt pulled in so many directions by things I HAD to do. What I have learned recently is there is very little that I actually HAVE to do. Sometime I choose to do so many things that it becomes a management game for me and then I go insane (because drunk or sober, my life is unmanageable by me.) I find that the less things I have on my "have to do list" the more peaceful I am. Reminds me a the slogan, "how important is it?" It never usually is for me, if it doesn't have anything to do with God.
ReplyDeleteVery true, Marie. One of the ways I can tell that I'm getting squirrelly is that my to-do list gets ridiculously long, including a lot of things that are just normal daily activities. If 'wash the dishes' is on the list, I've got a problem (beyond dirty dishes). So I take all that stuff off and then prioritize based on the old driving instructor motto of "deal with the danger that will kill you first." Going through that process always makes me feel better and about 70% of the time I then actually use the list.
ReplyDeleteThere is a certain amount of ego involved in some of this. I have a friend who has a habit of taking everything on without anyone to say to her that perhaps it's a bit much. On the contrary, they are happy to allow her to bare the burdens in life. She feels that she is the only one that can actually do it right, and can only get it done when it needs to get done. She piles more and more on, and conmplains about the stress of it all. She has denied herself of vacations and other breaks that might provide diversion, because her world, and the worlds of her loved ones will surely fall apart without her.
ReplyDeleteIn the third step i realize that i am not as important as i might think. That others can do things as well, sometimes better than i, but God forbid differently than i would. I have come to understand that my happiness should count for something, and i have to make it happen. I can let others do for me, and let others do for themselves, and know that my help will be appreciated. There are times when we can sit back and allow it to just happen, and have confidence that God will make sure all will be okay.