June 18

HUMILITY MONTH: DAY 18: “To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin

I don’t know anything about anything. If I did, it would be old stuff by now. This is what I say to myself in times when I am fearful in some circumstances. For me, this is encountering a situation I somehow believe I am supposed to overcome, but not sure how.

Most of the time, my fear is powerlessness. Ego does not like this concept. It is the most powerful thing we learn as humans. To be powerless in the face of life. Is it any wonder, then, that we have such gigantic battles with powerlessness over our addictions?

Ego hates being powerless over natural disasters, weather, anything that cannot be thought out and overcome by more ego. This is the battle of life. Knowing that there is nothing to say when we are traumatized by the sheer immensity of life. A car accident…powerless! A tornado…powerless! Being beat up by someone…powerless! Trying to gage and control someone else’s responses or attitudes about anything…powerless! Trying to make someone love you who doesn’t or can’t…powerless! Needing a sunny day and here comes the rain…powerless! Trying to stop the inevitable onset of aging…powerless! Wanting to change someone you like into someone you could love…powerless! There is a gigantic list of powerless examples in this world.

The two I most love to use on new members who do not want to accept their personal powerlessness is to make the sun go down (or up) at times other than when it is going to happen or to stop one single wave on the beach. These are great ways to recognize that we truly have very little to say or do with what happens in the world around us.

We believe we can control weather by talking about it; but there are so many hours of my life spent listening to people talk about the weather that I can never get back. I refuse to do this even one more minute of this life!

We believe we have the power to change another person into the “ONE” for us; make so many attempts, and end up broken hearted, because we never had that power either.

We don’t know SO many things in this world, but ego tells us we can somehow fill someone’s need (or our own) to understand things like God, Death, Life, Love, Why (anything!), and so on.

What if we just accepted that we do NOT know and move on? What if we truly comprehend our little self and our limitations (SO MANY) and our possibilities (SO MANY); and that EVERYTHING is possible for the Universal Power and that all we need to do is line up with THAT and ALL of it can and maybe, just maybe, WILL.

Have people cheated death? Yes, how…don’t know. Why? Don’t know. Was it God? Don’t know…maybe.

Around these things, I really hate it that Ego steps in to try and explain, comfort, console, explain, justify, rationalize things that have been, since the beginning of time and man, unexplainable, inconsolable, unanswerable, unjustifiable, and uncomfortable by anyone. I really, really hate the ego that placates, attempts to know, pretends to know, and knows that I know that it doesn’t.

Why? Because it shows me, again and again, the face of my ego…the mirror image of how insignificant ego truly is. And I hate that! I really do.

If I hate ego so much, perhaps I am learning to love humility more than I did. Maybe that love will draw humility to me more powerfully than before. Maybe all around me, I will hear myself and others saying, “I don’t know…I guess I am powerless…again…always…don’t know…” An interesting, but somehow, really reassuring goal to have…I love it!