December 12

LOVE MONTH: DAY 12: “I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

And so is fear. I have lived in both hatred and fear. It is hard for me, today, to tell the difference between the two. Fear drives hate. We cannot afford this emotional pain…it eats the fiber of our spirit and soul.

The worst is that kind of fear that is completely self-consuming and self-centered. It is toxic and ugly and we have all been there. The idea of recovery is to walk away from that into the love that gives from a space of knowing all we ever need is being provided in ways that are not of our making, nor any of our business.

When we can sit in that space, there is no time for thinking of self and how our lives are going to unfold. We live in this moment, completely happy and full of love for the moment. This is our goal here, why we do this work. Some think it is all about not drinking, but it goes so much deeper than that.

It is in the recognizing of the beliefs and fears that drove us to believe the lies of our ego and how it wants to keep us under its thumb.

The source of all that fear is the limited screaming of the purple monkeys the ego creates to tell us the story it wants us to hear and believe and live into.

My heart breaks for the times I believed what the monkeys screamed at me and I bought. These amazing steps and their message is to lay all that down and walk away. It is a broken relationship, and no amount of juggling, analyzing, cajoling, or manipulation on our part is going to make it work.

We cannot sacrifice the love of our Creator that lives in our hearts another moment to be stuck in fear and believing we know what the hell we are doing. We are all just as completely clueless as the next guy, and no amount of anything the ego tries to tantalize us with is going to work.

No one gets information about tomorrow or even 5 minutes from now. When we recognize the faith that is necessary to step away from the insanity of living with fear and disavowing our hearts, we have made a place for ourselves among humans.

I am now, and always will be, human; in this time and place. That means I am susceptible, vulnerable, emotional, spiritual and physical today, right now. I know nothing about what that means in 10 minutes or 10 days or 10 years. None of my business. My only business is to love life, me, you and all God’s kids in this moment and go from there.

Yes, I have plans for the day. I have already opened my heart to the idea that they may not be what happens in the day. I will let that be and know that my Creator is driving this bus, and my seat is for me. Your seat is for you, I have no say about that.

My intention is to get in my seat on the bus today. And go where it takes me, alive and present to the ride. I don’t want to miss a thing.

In the past, fear and anger and hatred kept me from even knowing I was on the bus, I missed all of it. I don’t want that. When I see what others look like in their fear and self-obsession, I know it is part of me, but not a part I want to live in any longer. I can witness and relate, but I ain’t riding that bus today. And I will point out your seat on the Creator’s bus every time. It is up to each of us where we sit today.