Upon Reflection…

January 19, 2024January 19, 2024 / 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.

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.

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.

Tough Times; Times of Growth

February 16, 2019 / Tim / 2 Comments

I brought a friend home from the hospital yesterday. She had the fourth operation on her back to replace a spinal disc with one made of titanium. It’s part of a series of replaced discs that will allow her to continue to live independently and pain free–once it heals. Until then she will have to go through a lot of pain and three months of recuperation. However, had she not had the operation, she would go through many more months of pain and suffering with no guarantee that the spinal column might be completely severed by the shifting vertebrae. Kind of a hard spot to be in, especially having gone through it three times previously.

A few things come to mind. First, sometimes we have to endure a great deal in order to make it through the present challenge. It may be physical, mental or spiritual pain that we are enduring. And like any change, it brings discomfort and few of us relish being uncomfortable. But we must keep our eyes on the end result to help us keep our sanity. If all goes well, in three months, or however long this challenge should last, life will establish a new normal. We’ll find a new comfort zone and hopefully the pain we experienced will be a memory and we can be grateful to have lived through the experience.

Second, I am struck by the difficulty in accepting help when we are so used to being independent. I was thinking this morning that we all know that infants and elderly need our assistance. But I think that we must remember that all of us are dependent on everyone else. I can’t do it all, and I never could. I rely on the ‘kindness of strangers,’ as well as that of my family and friends. I needed people when I was going through difficult times in my life and I need them to share the wonderful times as well. When we share our interdependence, we help to balance out the good times with the challenging ones. I willingly assist you and later you assist me.

Third, no one likes to give up control. Placing ourselves into the power of another is very difficult for many people. I want to control what is happening to me. Yet, there are times, such as going under the scalpel of a surgeon, or getting strapped into the seat of a jet that we do give up complete control of our lives. But we usually don’t do this on a whim. The people upon whom we rely are trained professionals. There still are risks, but they are minimized by their experience.

All of these three: passing through an ordeal, relying on others and giving up control all are part of trust: trusting others, trusting the process and trusting life. And they have to do with taming our egos as well. ‘I can’t do it all and I never could,’ is a good lesson to practice once in a while. It is also a lesson that we survive everything that comes our way. It may not be the manner in the which we had envisioned or in the time frame that we were hoping for, but we get through it. I am reminded of the character in the movie ‘The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel’ in which the young entrepreneur says “It will all work out in the end. If it’s not working out, it’s not the end.” Whatever it is, you will make it through.

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Best Laid Plans

November 27, 2018November 26, 2018 / Tim / 2 Comments

There´s a Chinese saying that goes something like: “Man plans and God laughs.” We all can think of times when everything that we planned went so far from the direction that we had planned that even we had to laugh at the disparity between our intentions and the results. I’m learning that my circle of control extends, if I’m lucky, to the end of my reach. After that? Well, it’s up to my Higher Power.

Monday, a couple of weeks ago I was going to pick up a friend at the airport, a two and a half hour drive away. I got a call from him a several hours before I was to leave saying that he had been bumped from his flight and wouldn’t be arriving until Tuesday at the same time. Could I pick him up then? Yes, of course.

For a moment I thought I had a free morning. Then my neighbour Amy came over. Her dog was very ill. She was to fly out the next day to visit her mother and she was worried about her dog and that she’d have to cancel her flight. Fortunately I had my friend’s car so I told her I would drive her to the vet with her dog: a happy circumstance. On the way to the vet, we discovered that her flight time the next day would allow me to drive her to the airport when I was picking up my friend whose flight was changed. Perfect.

While Amy and her dog were with the vet I received a message from another friend Nick. A mutual friend of all three of us had passed away in the US. He was from Nick’s hometown and Nick decided to fly up to go to the funeral and visit family at the same time. He was flying out very early Wednesday morning so he had booked a hotel near the airport. Would he like a ride up on Tuesday? Sure thing. The vet was able to diagnose the dog’s ailment, gave him a couple of shots, prescribed some other medications and he would be fine. Amy was very relieved.

Tuesday morning we all loaded into my friend’s car and headed up to the airport. Along the way we were able to discuss how we were feeling about our friend who had passed. Amy was able to talk about her visit with her mother whom she hadn’t seen in seven years. It was one of those impromptu recovery meetings.

I dropped them off, did a bit of shopping, swung back around to the airport to pick up my friend who had been bumped the day before and headed back home. The lesson of the past two days rattled around in my head as I drove. I could not have put together a more perfect plan for drop offs and pick ups. It was so obvious to me that I wasn’t the one who had executed such a perfect plan.

I’d like to alter the saying that I started with: “Man trusts and God provides.” This was a powerful lesson to me in letting go of the joystick and letting my Higher Power take the lead in arranging things. Yes, I make plans, I recently commented to a friend, but I don’t live in them. I awaken in the morning these days with a sense of “here I am, ready for what is put before me.” Slowly I’m learning that if I keep myself out of the way, doors open and incredible things unfold.

I am grateful.