How Important Is HOW?

How important is HOW? Short answer: Very!

It was the key to my experience of my Higher Power, whom I call God. I was told in my first months in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) that the key to changing my life was to be Honest, Open-minded, and Willing (HOW). That was the key to learning new skills that would change my life. “After all,” old-timers would tell me, “I will not think myself into a new way of living; I will live myself into a new way of thinking.”

And so it was.

I asked questions about the Twelve Steps of AA. I was very, very concerned about the 3rd Step [Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understood Him] – in that I believed it was the crucial step in my recovery. And I was told I was correct. It is the crucial step.

My concern was that I would not do it perfectly or completely enough to really get sober and turn my life around. Again, when I voiced this concern, the old-timers smiled and told me not to think so much. “Don, you’ll do the 3rd Step correctly by doing Steps 4-12 for the rest of your life.”

Aha! Finally! That made perfectly good sense to me.

By doing Steps 4-12 my life began to change: My compulsion to drink left me – very quietly, I might add; my willingness to ASK questions and DO the suggested responses I received grew and grew as I went on; my open-mindedness to the experience and hope of all who honestly shared began to guide me more and more; and, voilà, my life got better and better and my thinking, I noticed, was simply following along behind me.

I worked the Steps and, as promised, I had the beginnings of a spiritual awakening along the way. The spiritual awakening is still unfolding almost 30 years later. I am not perfect but I am still a work in progress.

I have used that same approach in my involvement with A Course In Miracles (ACIM). I am working the daily Lessons again. ACIM is divided into three main parts: The Text; The Workbook for Students; and the Manual for Teachers. The Workbook for Students states in its Introduction (italics are mine):

1 A theoretical foundation such as the text provides is necessary as a framework to make the exercises in this workbook meaningful. Yet it is doing the exercises that will make the goal of the course possible. An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of this workbook to train your mind to think along the lines the text sets forth.

2 The exercises are very simple. They do not require a great deal of time, and it does not matter where you do them. They need no preparation. The training period is one year. The exercises are numbered from 1 to 365….

4 The purpose of the workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world. The exercises are planned to help you generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is equally applicable to everyone and everything you see….

8 Some of the ideas the workbook presents you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite startling. This does not matter. You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do. You are not asked to judge them at all. You are asked only to use them. It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true.

9 Remember only this; you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than that is required.

For me the message of AA and ACIM is being aware of how the “HOW” and the “DOING” will change my life. My thinking will follow along like a welcome, curious puppy. Perhaps you may consider embarking on the same journey.

As I’ve stated before, “I have to understand, on a visceral level, who the “Me” or “I” really is when I am speaking or thinking. The “I” that says to myself, “I really need a newer, more reliable car” is a different “I” than the one that says to Spirit, “I can’t do this anymore; help me perceive things the way You see them.”

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening to me and getting to know me – warts and all. As always, feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#3 Mar 2017

Copyright 2017

The “Joy” Of Hitting Bottom

In Chapter 9 of my book, How the Bible became the Bible [ISBN – 978-0-7414-2993-3, Infinity Publishing, 2006] I described a little of my story as an alcoholic: During the last year [before I stopped drinking], I was drinking about a fifth [of vodka] a day and a half-gallon over the weekend. I had to have alcohol in my blood at all times, twenty-four hours a day, just to feel normal. That meant I had to have a drink every four hours or so—even in the middle of the night. And during that whole time it never dawned on me that this was abnormal.

Eight or nine months before April 17, 1987 [my sobriety date], I awoke one morning at three with severe indigestion and had my son take me to an emergency care facility. My diagnosis: critical, acute pancreatitis. “An ambulance is being arranged to take you to the hospital. Oh! By the way, your blood alcohol level is 2.8!” I had gone to bed (a.k.a. passed out) at 10:30 p.m. that summer night. If I had a blood alcohol level of 2.8 five hours later, just how drunk was I when I “went” to bed? In the mid-to-upper-threes? That’s well into the range of toxic, fatal alcohol poisoning.

I had done that night after night after night!

That was my life and that’s what I thought I had to do in order to “cope.” I thought I was relatively normal under the circumstances. After all, if you had my life, wouldn’t you drink, too?

I was relatively normal. I was a relatively normal alcoholic—a maintenance drinker who had lived for thirteen or fourteen years drinking a pint of booze every evening between 6 and 11 p.m. Then, all at once, I needed more. My sense of control left. Sometimes I could drink almost a fifth and appear outwardly sober. Other times I could have only several drinks and I’d black out. This loss of control terrified me because it threatened my ability to maintain my pretense—my front—to the world: that I was successful; that I had an important, pressure-packed job; that I was a good father; that ... well, you get the picture. Anything that would crack that shell and let the world see the awful mess and hollowness inside me was to be avoided at all costs.

The last year or so of heavy drinking began with intermittent shots of vodka during the night. I’d wake up at 4 a.m. in a cold sweat with the shakes. Later, leg cramps would come as well. I’d go to the bathroom and then “snitch” a swig of vodka. Soon, that 4 a.m. pattern became a 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. pattern. I didn’t understand that I was experiencing alcohol withdrawal. It seemed that three or four hours was about as long as I could go without a drink—day or night, asleep or at work—day after day. I began carrying a flask with me to work because I couldn’t last all the way to the two double-vodka gimlets I had for lunch. I kept a bottle in my car so I could make it home after work (as well as one in the trunk—for emergencies! Unless you’ve been there, it’s hard to imagine the nightmarish, stark terror of being stalled in traffic gridlock—alone—with the thought of no vodka.).

Within the blink of an eye I was having mid-morning and mid-afternoon grapefruit/vodka cocktails at my desk. I now believe that those two small cans of grapefruit juice were providing me all the nourishment I’d get some days. Co-workers and clients began to complain of alcohol on my breath. I would explain I had a prescription throat spray for my sinuses. I bought a pair of self-darkening prescription glasses to help hide my red, puffy eyes.

Rule number one: Keep up the pretense. Rule number two: There are no other rules.

It took all that living, if you want to call it that, to get me to a place where I finally gave up. Gave up what?  The pretense, the vodka, the illusion that I could handle myself, the belief that I could manage my life.

I really believe that without “hitting my bottom,” I would never have made it to Alcoholics Anonymous and witnessed the hope, happiness, and serenity I found there. Today, I am very grateful to be a recovering alcoholic.

I think my story may be a very apt analogy to what is happening in our country. In order to wake up and seek real transformation, we have to “hit bottom” as a nation, just as I did as an individual. Although sometimes I wish events in my life had taken a different course, I know in my heart that it took all that happened to me to get me into those rooms where I found an acceptance that transformed my life.

What happened to me has happened to every recovering alcoholic who, in working AA’s program of recovery, will readily admit they would never have become a grateful member of AA’s Fellowship without having hit their bottom. So, perhaps ….

• ·      … we have to have Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, and Mike Pence work to eliminate the recent regulations that protect water, air, natural resources or our wilderness areas.
• ·      … we need this Administration and complicit Republican Congress to roll back civil, religious, LGBT, workers’, women’s, and minority rights in favor of business and evangelical Christian beliefs.
• ·      … we need to have this Administration and its Republican congressional support move back to the pre-Obama financial regulations to control Wall Street and lenders (including credit cards) just as the Bush Administration did. This way we can openly enjoy a repeat of the 2007-08 financial crisis.
• ·      … we need to come face-to-face with our very own ignorance in determining the difference between fake and factual news, as well as determining that voter participation and political awareness is both a blessing and a responsibility and non-participation carries with it a very severe penalty.

Be grateful, be aware (without fear or anger), and begin in your own way to work for our national recovery.

As I’ve stated before, “I have to understand, on a visceral level, who the “Me” or “I” really is when I am speaking or thinking. The “I” that says to myself, “I really need a newer, more reliable car” is a different “I” than the one that says to Spirit, “I can’t do this anymore; help me perceive things the way You see them.”

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening to me and getting to know me – warts and all. As always, feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#4 Jan 2017

Copyright 2017

The Women’s March and the Age of the Feminine

The Age of Aquarius is the beginning of the influence of the Age of the Feminine, which will last from 2000 to 4100. It replaces the Age of Pisces (masculine energy), which heavily influenced civilization for the last 2,100 years. Perhaps you remember the Harmonic Convergence in 1987 or the Mayan Prophecies in 2012. These two esoteric events were to be the beginnings of the Age of the Feminine. This beginning began – astrologically – with the Harmonic Convergence and concluded with the Mayan Prophecies, which declared that this was the end of the [masculine] world as we knew it. The earliest description of the Age of the Feminine I can recall was that this feminine influence will emphasize cooperation over the old-energy masculine emphasis on competition.

It was stated that the transition from Pisces to Aquarius will last 50 years or so.  This shift from competition to cooperation also will occur within the midst of a rapidly advancing shift from national information, politics and economies to one of globalized information, politics and economics. I do not believe we have any problems seeing the current effects of this occurring shift.

But the varied groups, interests, and focuses that were represented in the “Women’s March” were so diverse, yet unified, that everyone seemed to ignore the small differences that existed between their specific, acute causes. They had coalesced around their commonality rather than splintering off for their specific interests. Perhaps, it is an indication of how a feminine outlook is not as concerned about power struggles for “top billing,” or for egoic recognition. It was a perfect example of the feminine emphasis on cooperation rather than the old energy of competition.

Carolyn Myss wrote in her newsletter [Museletter - I marched in the Women's March ... Jan 23, 2017] about her experience in Chicago during the Women’s March.  I want to quote from it and encourage each of you to read the entire article: <info@myss.com>.  I think she is right-on:

“As a grad student in Theology, I learned some wildly intriguing Truths about the nature of good and evil and how these forces weave their way into the human condition…. Light does attract Darkness and Darkness does attract the Light. This is the polarity of the Yin and Yang.… How often is a person tempted to misuse some new form of power (money, position, authority) before that individual really learns how to manage that power?

“Yesterday was an experience - perhaps the experience - of the global rise of the Light embodied in the Feminine uniting Her countless fragments to become a global voice for power, for survival - for human dignity. Yesterday, we took our own authority to a new level, beyond the personal and catapulted into the impersonal, cosmic field. We witnessed our own power connected with hundreds of thousands of soul-companions, all of whom shared the same passion and respect for their own body, their intelligence, their spirit - and their rights as citizens. We saw what we can do beyond small groups, beyond local support groups, beyond our small prayer groups. Yesterday, while we were walking in our individual cities, towns and villages, we were simultaneously weaving together a global "inner net" of souls.

“Amazing. Just astounding. But maybe not…. Maybe this is exactly the right time to become activists. Yesterday felt so right. I felt hopeful for the first time in a long time. Truly, deeply hopeful. I felt that instead of "accepting the things I cannot change", we could "change the things we cannot accept."

“And this may be the most outrageous thought of all: We might have to thank the darkness for uniting all of us together. For this remarkable movement of inspired and empowered human beings would not have happened had it not been for his occupying the White House. The Feminine Light would not have burst forth through us like a cosmic blast, inspiring millions to take to the streets and represent our dignity and spirit, had he not made such a "Lightning Strike" essential. But Light stood up to darkness on Saturday. And in the perfection of peacefulness, the Light sent shock waves around the world: We are here. We are no longer silent.

“… From a mystical perspective, the Light uses the Dark to awake in people that inner craving for those qualities of the soul that are fed by the Light: Liberty, Dignity, Virtue, Honor, Equality. He is the essential catalyst that stirred up a hidden shadow side of humanity, a shadow all of us have in some way helped form… Remember that we are a part of every event in some way. We need to look at this darkness in ourselves, carefully and deeply, as Darkness around you can draw you in. Hatred, [fear] and rage are contagious.

“Light participates in the dance of Darkness and Darkness participates in the evolution of the Light. It has always been this way. History teaches us that any time massive change happens, societies become fearful [and we need to be aware that you] and I can become fearful and fragile at any time… We are a changing society in a rapidly changing world. We cannot go backwards to some "good old days…." People fear the future because they cannot see a place for themselves "somewhere down the line…." A fearful [masculine] society always tries to repress its women and its intellectuals. We are both. And we say NO.

“Maybe another politician who recognized this vulnerability and anger in the public could have awakened the fearful and stirred the underbelly of anger in America…. Nevertheless, it was his shadow charisma that called out the Light of the Feminine more strongly than any other event of force in the history of the planet… Nothing and no one person has ever inspired a global uprising in support of the dignity of women. We have to say to him, ‘Well done. Thank you for uniting us. Honestly. We thank you. No one else could have done this.’"

A Course In Miracles (ACIM) states this truth in the Manual for Teachers, Section 18 (How is correction made?), paragraphs 2-3:

2 [The major lesson for God’s teachers is to learn how to react without anger/fear to thoughts that appear to be true in our perceived world of form. (My words: And it must be remembered that acceptance is merely being aware without judgment and fear)]. Only in this way can [Teachers] proclaim the truth about themselves. Through them, the Holy Spirit can now speak of the reality of the Son of God. Now He can remind the world of sinlessness, the one unchanged, unchangeable condition of all that God created. Now He can speak the Word of God to listening ears, and bring Christ's vision to eyes that see. Now is He free to teach all minds the truth of what they are, so they will gladly be returned to Him. And now is guilt forgiven, overlooked completely in His sight and in God's Word.

3 Anger but screeches, "Guilt is real!" Reality is blotted out as this insane belief is taken as replacement for God's Word. The body's eyes now "see;" its ears alone can "hear." Its little space and tiny breath become the measure of reality. And truth becomes diminutive and meaningless. Correction has one answer to all this…:

You but mistake interpretation for the truth. And you are wrong. But a mistake is not a sin, nor has reality been taken from its throne by your mistakes. God reigns forever, and His laws alone prevail upon you and upon the world. His Love remains the only thing there is. Fear is illusion, for you are like Him.

As I’ve stated before, “I have to understand, on a visceral level, who the “Me” or “I” really is when I am speaking or thinking. The “I” that says to myself, “I really need a newer, more reliable car” is a different “I” than the one that says to Spirit, “I can’t do this anymore; help me perceive things the way You see them.”

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening to me and getting to know me – warts and all. As always, feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#4 Jan 2017

Copyright 2017

Don’t Think So Much Sometimes … Just Do

Early in my recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous I was mesmerized by one of the simple sayings of old-timers in the Program: “You don’t think yourself into a new way of living, you live yourself into a new way of thinking.” I had always prided myself on my intellectual prowess, my ability to discern and apply specific lessons to a wider field, and my ability to remember and to “connect the dots.” Now I was basically being told to ignore my intellectual strength and just follow simple directives.

They also said over and over: “If you want what we have do what we do.” They did not say, “Think about doing what you think we are doing.” They simply said, “Just do what we do.” These old-timers also said: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

Do the steps – don’t think about the steps, memorize the steps, opine about the steps. Just do the steps and you’ll change and, eventually, come to understand that you have had a spiritual awakening. You will no longer be the same person – and you will probably be the last person in the room to recognize how much you have changed. They also reminded me: “Work the Steps, live sober today, and the rest of your life is none of your business.”

So, if they said “Jump!” I jumped. If they said, “Get here early and make coffee,” I got to a meeting early and made coffee. I did what I was told and I got better. My compulsion to drink left me – although I couldn’t remember when that happened. I began thinking of others. I became aware of my impact (or not) on others depending on how I had acted. All these things were new to me, a little uncomfortable to me, and always a little awkward for me.

And then I had a marvelous experience during the early years of my recovery.

While I was still drinking, a young man from my university (although many years behind me) came to work as a software developer on a project of which I was the Test and Integration manager. Several years later, now sober, I was a Program Manager overseeing 7 different projects. I hired this same young man, Joel, to be a project manger over two of the projects. Our client, a federal departmental director, was very difficult to work with. He called and wanted me to fire Joel and to cancel our work. Joel and I went to see him. After the meeting the client not only rescinded his request for terminating our effort, but had actually expanded our scope of work. Later that day, Joel asked if he could discuss something privately with me. We went to lunch.

Joel told me something like this: “When we worked together 3-4 years ago, I got to know Don O’Dell from North Texas State University. You still look the same and still smoke a pipe, but everything else about you is absolutely different. What has happened?”  I told him about my recovery in AA. We became very close friends.

That acknowledgement of how much I had changed was such a wonderful gift to me. I had just been doing what I had been told, and here was a total “outsider” who was amazed at how different I had become. It was such a cherished bit of feedback.

All this is true for A Course in Miracles (ACIM), a well.

It’s been two years since I have worked the lessons in the Workbook For Students in ACIM. In the Introduction to the Workbook, there is an instruction that is very reminiscent of what I learned in AA (Bold emphasis is mine): 

INTRODUCTION

1 A theoretical foundation such as the text provides is necessary as a framework to make the exercises in this workbook meaningful. Yet it is doing the exercises that will make the goal of the course possible. An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of this workbook to train your mind to think along the lines the text sets forth.

2 The exercises are very simple. They do not require a great deal of time, and it does not matter where you do them. They need no preparation. The training period is one year. The exercises are numbered from 1 to 365. Do not undertake to do more than one set of exercises a day….

4 The purpose of the workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world….

6 The only general rules to be observed throughout, then, are: First, that the exercises be practiced with great specificity, as will be indicated. This will help you to generalize the ideas involved to every situation in which you find yourself, and to everyone and everything in it. Second, be sure that you do not decide for yourself that there are some people, situations or things to which the ideas are inapplicable….

8 Some of the ideas the workbook presents you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite startling. This does not matter. You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do. You are not asked to judge them at all. You are asked only to use them. It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true.

9 Remember only this; you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than that is required.

I cannot just think about the Course, or memorize pithy quotes from the Course, or opine on the meaning of the Course. After reading the Text, I just need to do the Lessons as instructed.

As I’ve stated before, “I have to understand, on a visceral level, who the “Me” or “I” really is when I am speaking or thinking. The “I” that says to myself, “I really need a newer, more reliable car” is a different “I” than the one that says to Spirit, “I can’t do this anymore; help me perceive things the way You see them.”

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening to me and getting to know me – warts and all. As always, feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#1 Jan 2017

Copyright 2017