Spirituality

Upon Reflection…

/ Tim / 1 Comment

One of the AA speakers I’ve listened to in the last year often says, “Life is lived forward but understood backward.” We live our lives moving ahead moment to moment but it is only on reflection in meditation or journaling or discussion that we see the patterns emerging and the fullness of the landscape of our lives.

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July, 2022. I heard a voice, or at least a very strong idea in my head as I sat in a van returning from Panama to my home in Costa Rica. This insistent idea was that I needed to return to Canada. What???

I had been living very comfortably in the tropics for the past ten years in my home and among friends. I very much belonged there, I thought. When I questioned why I should go back home, the idea came that it had something to do with my wellbeing, that I just needed to be back up north. There wasn’t a clear reason, really, but the thought, the idea, was very persistent the rest of that day and the next. I thought plenty about it, it was part of my meditation and journaling. I rationalized that it had something to do about my mom who was 89 and in a nursing home.

I talked to my brother, mentioned that I was thinking of moving back to Canada. A few days later he told me that I could live in the little house at his business, which had been empty for several years. He had a vehicle I could use. He also needed someone to do some computer design work and help out in the office. I could go and visit with Mom, a half an hour away whenever I wanted.

Boom! I had a place to stay, a job and a way to move around back in a country where I no longer owned anything. Perhaps this was some sort of message from a Higher Power.

It didn’t happen right away. I had responsibilities to look after before I left. Patience. I moved back in December of 2022. I settled into a very different way of life just as winter was coming on. I became a regular at local thrift shops, buying warmer clothes and things for the house. I jumped into a new job with a commute that takes 30 seconds if I walk slowly and I got to spend time with Mom. I joined the local AA group and also went to other meetings in the area, often combining a visit with Mom in Stratford and attending meetings there.

There were times I felt lonely. After 5 PM and on weekends, I was alone on the property. I learned to adjust to a new way of life. I continued with my morning meditation and journaling. I got into more service work in AA. I was grateful, mostly, for where I was. I trusted that idea that this is where I was supposed to be.

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In March of 2023 another persistent idea arrived: Get a new sponsor. I wasn’t going anywhere so I figured I may as well do as I was told. I had an idea of who I thought would be a good sponsor, but decided to ask a friend who sponsors a lot of men if he had someone he thought could sponsor me. He replied with the name of the guy I had been thinking about. Something was clicking. The new sponsor and I had a coffee together. I thought we would just be chatting now and again about ‘stuff’, but he suggested that we go through the steps again as outlined in the Big Book. And so we have.

I hadn’t a clue as to what lay ahead of me as I worked through the 12 Steps again with this man.

He shared with me the ‘Set Aside Prayer’ at our first Big Book session. It has become for me a touchstone of this path I am on in my journey: letting go to what I know to make room for new knowledge. Oh the things I am learning by letting go of preconceived thoughts and ideas and by not putting conditions on where my journey is leading me. I am learning to put my trust in a Higher Power, following through on my decision in Step Three.

I’m letting go, mostly, of trying to control my future. I know that I couldn’t have imagined what has happened to me in the past 18 month had I tried to control things. Upon reflection, I know that while telling folks that Mom wasn’t doing well was a plausible reason for returning here, I see now that the main reason I’m back has been for me: I needed to renew my commitment to the AA program. I needed to do some deep work with another man. I needed to listen to speakers talking about AA, the Big Book, the steps and my disease. I needed to share this program by working with others and be of service. I needed to see how close I was to taking a drink.

Upon reflection, I see that now.

Today I have a better understanding of what these past months have given me. I certainly didn’t as I was going through all the changes. I will be sharing some of this in future posts.

I don’t know where my journey is taking me. But my understanding of everything I’ve gone through has given me greater trust and confidence in moving forward. So I will continue to do what’s strongly suggested in Steps 10, 11 and 12 in order to grow, and I will trust the process. And, upon reflection, my understanding of these things will become clearer.

A Year in a Life

/ Tim / 6 Comments

It’s been a long time since my last post; April I think it was. It’s not that I haven’t had the time to write. I have been writing a lot, almost daily in a journal. And now I know that it’s time for me to start writing and sharing more blog posts.

This past year has been very full.

I moved back to Canada the first week of December, 2022. Leaving my home, friends, loves of the last ten years has been so challenging. Costa Rica is indescribably beautiful in so many ways. But I knew that I needed to continue with the next part of my journey back in Ontario. Moving back in December might not have been the easiest month to move back: I had to crawl out a window on the house on Christmas morning because both doors were completely blocked half way up by snow. I survived.

I started working a full-time job, in my brother’s company. It’s the first time since 1996 that I’ve worked full-time for someone else. The ol’ nine to five, though in my case it’s 7 to 3:30, with a pay cheque every Thursday. I’ve worked for myself and on contract jobs for so many years, doing so many things that it was very strange to have a job where I could go in, do my work and leave it completely until the next morning. But this has also given me the opportunity to do so many other things on evenings and weekend.

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I was blessed to be able to spend a lot of quality, though somewhat challenging time with my mother during the last ten months of her life. In 2020 some severe medical issues forced her to completely give up her independence and move into a nursing home. While I was a long way away in Costa Rica, her plight was present to me, but certainly not in the way that I could appreciate how challenging this had been for her. She went from living in her own garden apartment where she moved easily between friends and activities, driving her own car, going to meetings, dances and casinos with friends, to being unable to do so many of the basic things in life. She could no longer walk nor stand. Her life was restricted to a very nice, but small room at the home, dependent on the staff for transfers from the bed to the commode, the tub to her wheelchair. It was a bitter pill to swallow. Hard for me to see; I can imagine but little what it was like for her. I’m grateful for the time I got to spend with her, two or three afternoons or evenings a week. When she passed at the end of September, she was more than ready to move on to whatever lies beyond.

The most important change in my life was getting more involved in AA. I’ve been sober since 2011. I worked the steps with a sponsor. I went to plenty of meetings. I always had a sponsor and I sponsored others. In Costa Rica I was involved in my local AA and I worked on the committee for our yearly convention. But for probably a year before I moved back to Canada, I noticed that things in my life were not as ‘happy, joyous and free’ as they had been. Back north, I started going to a lot of meetings, seeing many old friends in the program. And the thought came to me that perhaps I could use a refresher course through the steps again myself.

That has become the understatement of my year!

I asked a young man with just over a year of continuous sobriety to sponsor me and take me through the steps. I actually thought I would be doing this young man a favour by giving him the opportunity to sponsor me. I was completely unable to see the arrogance in my thinking.

This young man has taken me through the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous in a way I never knew existed. We would read paragraphs that I know I’ve read many before but would have to admit I really never ‘heard’ until that moment. Many times during our discussions, he would point out ideas and concepts that were completely foreign to me: me, the veteran AA member! I learned quickly that I needed to open my mind. The ‘Set Aside Prayer’ he asked me to write in the inside cover of my Big Book and which we prayed every time we met, was working in a way I could never have predicted. I was letting go of old ideas about what I thought I knew about the AA program and myself and was seeing greater truths.

I had no idea how much I needed what this young man has. And I’ve made sure he knows how grateful I am for the experience of continuing to work with him. The AA program I am following today is very different from the one I returned to Canada with. Not for lack of effort. I had a good man as a sponsor in Costa Rica. But I know I needed to come here to get the renewal in the program I needed. I can now see how close I was to taking another first drink.

With renewed guidance, I am working the AA program. I have a home group that knows I’m a member. I have group and now district responsibilities. I am privileged to be taking other members through the Big Book as my sponsor is taking me. And, most importantly, I have made a deeper connection to that Higher Power that I can now see has guided me to where I am today in my recovery. And for all of this, I am truly grateful.

I had no idea whatsoever what was ahead of me when my brother and sister-in-law picked me up at the airport that December evening. It’s been a year of great changes and challenges. And I have no idea what the next year might bring: I await with eagerness what lies ahead.

RINGING THE BELL

/ Tim / 1 Comment

When we come to a realization of a new reality, it is amazing how much that opens up and changes our lives. Think of when you got your driver’s license and got behind the wheel of your parent’s car for the first time alone! What freedom, what exhilaration, what a new world just opened up to you! You just made a huge levelling up on the independence scale! And after a few moments of this new found view of your world, you couldn’t imagine how you survived without that piece of paper in your wallet. It must be what a butterfly thinks as it’s remembering its life as a caterpillar: a complete metamorphosis. And this brave new world also comes with a caveat: once you’ve rung the bell, you can’t unring it. Once you know something that will change your point of view, your point of view is forever changed.

I’ve had such a world view changing experience this past week. I have been delving into the nature of consciousness and the human condition. Max Planck, a physicist and the father of quantum physics talks about consciousness as the matrix upon which matter finds its existence: a Universal Consciousness over all matter. From the simple single atom to a rock, to a one-cell amoeba, to a tiger and to a human being, all find their source in consciousness. Certainly we, as humans, have a self aware consciousness that is far above that of the amoeba, but how far below us might the whale or the great ape find itself, if below at all? And who is to say that we are at the apex of this Universal Consciousness. Upon further investigation, the deeper we peer into outer space, we will undoubtedly discover that there are beings or entities in the cosmos that are as far above us in consciousness and awareness as we are above a rock.

There is only one reality: Consciousness. Everything, absolutely everything, begins and ends here!

I suppose you could call Universal Consciousness ‘God’, but for me, that word carries far too much baggage. Say the word ‘God’ to ten different people from ten different areas in the world and you’ll get at least 20 different definitions of what it means, many of them contradictory, even when coming from the same person. I think of the word ‘God’ and I am immediately on my knees at church looking up at some Zeus-like being ready to judge me for my sins. I think it’s best for me at least to refer to it as Universal Consciousness or, as one writer called it, the Big ‘C’.

I am connected to all who have lived, on Earth, and on all planets!

Let’s carry this a little further into the theory of quantum physics. If all matter, which is built upon the framework of Consciousness, is twisted together in an intricate web of connection then it cannot be separated: quantum entanglement, then that means that all matter, whether here on earth or thousands of lightyears away, is One. And all Consciousness is also One: Universal. The space that is between you and me doesn’t separate us. It unites us into one, both in body (matter) and spirit consciousness. As well, the consciousness that each of us possess can be seen as part of the single Universal Consciousness. For me, this is a far more compelling concept of my relationship to the divine than an old man on a throne throwing thunderbolts: a concept that I could never go back to now that bell of Universal Consciousness has been rung.

Alice Walker

But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can’t miss it. Alice Walker, The Color Purple

I sense that unity with all things, both seen and unseen. I feel like I have stepped out of the Platonic Cave and out of the shadows that I thought were reality and into a new light of being. I am part of the whole complexity of Universal Consciousness. And when we as human beings start to see how alike we are, the insignificant differences will fade away and we will work toward a better understanding of being a part of everything. Body and Soul. And when we have finally seen that, then perhaps we will begin to understand that which unites us with the rock, the animal, the planet, and the Universe. Matter and Consciousness are One.

I am intricately entangled with all life, all matter, everywhere!

This is one bell that can’t be unrung. And it is going to take some more time to fully unpack what it means.

Please share your ideas about this with me in the comments on this or any other article in Recovery River. Thank you.