What You Said, I Hate It When You Talk Like That

I cringe a little posting this one. In my defense, I am convinced that God has a sense of humor, an infinite one to be sure...but He seems to have favorites, puns, pratfalls, practical jokes. He puts thieves in service as messengers, a position which they do really well.

So if you have certain sorts of holes in your moral compass, there is hope for you yet.

One piece of this, over and over in my experience, alcoholics survive the most incredible circumstances. They so frequently do not deserve any kind of break if you look at them with human eyes. Yet they get sober and have amazing "war" stories, sometimes some harrowing war stories for real, the sort you would not relate in public if you are not certain of your audience. Or maybe not even then. But God has an infinite sense of humor as well as infinite justice and infinite mercy, infinitely focussed at each and every point in the cosmos.

I am very happy to tell you I have not received what I deserve. :)

What You Said

You told me so much
Last weekend when I came home.
It's hard to keep it
All in view, but one
Thing you said, at least I think
You said this to me,

"Go and sign no more."

I'm not sure I know what you
Mean by saying that.

January 11, 2009 9:40 AM

(Maybe I got that wrong somehow??)

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I wasn't done yet, wrriting like this...I don't always sit well in the requirements of spiritual living. It seems I have agendas within the agendas. Rigorous honesty is not an easy thing. The committee in my head can get stuff going pretty good, which can easily unhinge the truth track. I need a lift. I am not always comfortable when I learn I have to buy the flippin car.

I Hate It When You Talk Like That

When fate strips me down
I am to rejoice. Freedom
Is my true blessing.
That's what you tell me,
That if fate does not strip me
Then I should do so
For myself. But Pop,
It's a freakin belly ache
I have over this.
I don't like this tale
That wags the holy big dog
I hoped would save me.

January 11, 2009 12:47 PM

I should add a caveat. "Save" in this poem is not like Salvation in the Christian story, but it could be. So I don't mind if you read it that way. But for me it was "save from all this personal responsibility to do the stripping work." In AA, we say, "what an order, I can't go through with it." In other words, sobriety, the actual work of sobriety, just looks impossible at first. If I find myself in a certain mental neighborhood, surrounded by my own slum, it still looks impossible after 26 years of success.

One of the nasty parts of getting sober is finding out how much drunken behavior is simply me. Quitting drinking may not help that much sometimes.