FAITH MONTH: DAY 30: “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.” ― Abraham Lincoln
All of us, if we are honest, are here more than we care to admit. I know how many times I have been so miserably unhappy and lost that I have begged for answers, for relief.
Oddly, it has always come. In early recovery, I used the mantra, “Be still and know that I am God.” It did wonders toward quieting the Screaming Purple Monkey, because there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. Ego (SPM) loves to run around “fixing” things. It cannot stand silence and sitting still.
Which is why meditation, real meditation, without distraction, is so important to rid us of Ego (SPM). I can get quiet walking on the beach and looking for rocks or seaglass or even when I pull weeds. The repetitive nature of that quiets my mind. But I need the quiet and the sitting still when I am in real trouble, because there is so much noise in my head.
This quote really speaks about the same topic I wrote on a few days ago. That is, we have only enough information to have lived to THIS point. Anything new will have to be met with a new faith, a new plan, a new idea, a new day. We are not able to create in that space. So what we know is ALWAYS insufficient for today.
It will need to be met with things we don’t have at hand yet. If we meet it in the same ways, we will just keep repeating yesterdays answers. They do not serve in today. They are already dysfunctional (or is it mis-functional?) No matter, there is nothing about today that we know anything about. It is a total mystery. None of our old, worn solutions or plans will work here.
Inappropriate coping mechanisms will never become appropriate if we just keep practicing them on new situations. That is the very heart and soul of dysfunction. It is the reason we are inept at dealing with life on life’s terms. We don’t have the skillset to say, “I don’t know.”
So, we end up desperate and sad and scared, because life is foreign to us. It is SUPPOSED to be! If it all feels the same, day after day, we have missed the whole thing!
So many automatons are driving around, same shit, different day. They have become immune to surprises and life itself. They miss out on whole days by just keeping on with the same old life they have had for years. It is so heartbreaking. Then, one day, they look up and find that they are old and sick and hate it all. What now?
Well, this is the part where it gets really sad. For many, their lives are recognized too late. Their relationships are dead and dying. Their family are strangers who are not at all engaged with them any longer, because they were not present anyway. They hate everything they are doing because they were so disengaged to begin with.
This happens every day. And it is sad because most of the time, they have come to the end of their lives, alone, broken, empty and filled with remorse for what “might have been.”
Faith means that we do NOT live the same day, over and over. But we allow it to be surprising, different, exciting, maybe scary, maybe uncomfortable, but a NEW day, all the time. And we do NOT know what is going to happen next. I really love that!
Dolphin Hug 