surrender, god, and letting go

I am back from my workshop weekend and faced again with theology, or rather theological writing, here in this space. I can get a handle on step two as I discussed Friday - I came to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity. I believe that. I believe that nature can balance me, that nature, or the universe, or whatever it is out there that makes gravity work and the tides do their thing is certainly more powerful than me and can restore me to balance (sanity). I'm good with that.

Step three is a bigger, scarier step. "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of god as we understood god."

That's not exactly how it reads in conference-approved literature, but I think it'll be ok. Conference-approved literature capitalizes "God" and uses the male pronoun "Him" at the end of the sentence. My gut is the conference folks who oversee this stuff won't mind if I change the language to reflect my theology and gender issues.

The biggest issue here is made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of god as we understood god, not idiosyncratic language. Can I do that? Can I turn my will and my life over to the care of god as I understand god? It's a big, scary step. And actually, it does not require me to do the turning over, but merely make a mindful decision to do so. 'Made a decision to turn..." does NOT say "turned our wills and lives..."

So now the question is: can I make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of my higher power, however I envision that higher power to be? In the course of this workshop weekend, I found myself a couple of times in a position to choose a partner or join/form a group for one exercise or another. Sometimes I was purposeful and pro-active in the selecting process, and sometimes I was more passive, allowing myself to be open (while still at choice to refuse) to what opportunities might present themselves. When I was open to what might present itself to me, I found that the experience provided me with surprising richness of experience, and when I chose, with some agenda in mind, or some idea of what I might or could or should learn from a particular grouping, it never went quite as well. Now this might all be coincidence, and it may be Monday morning hindsight/quarterbacking, but it seems to be true now as I look back at my experience and assess how it all went.

I am faced now with a decision. Can I make the decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of my higher power? Can I turn my will and my life over to something so nebulous? Can I trust that great force of energy and love that has no name, no face, no form? Can I even address it with a request for help? This is where Unitarian Universalists are said to run onto problems when we pray. "To whom it may concern: There are some things in my life here that would benefit from your attention..." How do I do that? And can I do it every day?

The idea, I think, is to try to stop running things, to let go of the ego and step into the mystery and trust that the world will keep spinning without my supervision. I don't know how successful I am at such a letting go, or even at making a decision to do so. I guess maybe I can decide to give it my best shot. I can decide to do my best to turn my will and my life over to the care of god as I understand god. I can decide to trust the universe. I'm ok with that. Not sure about the whole letting go thing right now -- that's still pretty scary -- but I think I can lean back into the mystery of things and trust that the universe won't drop me.

Today I make the decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of god as I understand god. The details of what that letting go will look like will become apparent as I move through the next steps. This is a decision step. The following steps are how that decision becomes action and reality. Today I can make that decision. I can decide to turn my will and my life over. I can do that. Today, I decide. Yes. Tomorrow, I may have to decide again, but that's ok. I'll get there as I get there. Today I set the intention. Yes.

little bits

Money is still tight, but it seems to have slightly less of a stranglehold on my world right now. I got paid for that cellar clean-out, which is nice. We can pay the cable/Internet/phone bill now and see if they'll come fix the damned cable box so it doesn't sound like it's inhabited by crazed squirrels. No audio makes for tough watching on football Sundays. We can also get some heating oil, which will be nice. And maybe pay back one friend who lent us money last month for rent.

I did some writing this morning in my journal. Journal writing for me is very different from what I write here. Here I know I have an audience (all both of you, bless your devoted little hearts), but in my journal, I write for me. Sometimes it is like a meditation, sometimes it is like a prayer. I try to do some exploration, and I allow myself to write in a free-form, flowing style much like that old "stream of consciousness" stuff we played with in years past. What I write here is thinned by my internal filters. You get the funny stuff, the witty stuff, the sarcastic and zippy stuff, but not the vulnerable stuff. Not the scared stuff. Not the really, really scared stuff, the shame, the self-doubt, the insecurities, the negative stuff voiced by the chorus of demons that are my alcoholic thinking, my dysfunctional upbringing, and the sometimes hostile world in which I live.

I can dig pretty deep here, and get pretty honest, but the stuff I write before I have my first cup of coffee is the stuff you don't even dare whisper aloud in the dark. It is the stuff I keep hidden from myself, and it scares me sometimes to even put it on a page. After that first cuppa joe hits, the really intimate stuff fades back to the interior and hides. The witty stuff comes out to shine and get the attention. And the writing gets just a little bit less real. Less close to the bone. Less dangerous.

So this morning? Well, this morning I got started on that financial step work stuff I talked about yesterday. The thing that is scaring me is the personal inventory I need to take, where I look at my behaviors and my feelings and figure out what is worth keeping and what needs to be thrown out. When I was ready to do this step with regards to my alcoholism, my sponsor at the time said to me "all you have to do is be ready to change everything about yourself."

That's huge. Everything about myself is, well, everything about myself. My identity is what it is. It is how I define myself, for good or bad. To look at the parts of my life as they pertain to my financial mental health and discover that big hunks of stuff really have to go, well, that's a scary proposition.

I did it with my previous inventory, and while I did change some things about myself, I don't think I actually really changed everything about myself. I think maybe I changed a whole lot about my behavior and how I think and feel, and I suppose that might seem like a lot, but from where I sit, I am still me. I have not changed my identity. I am a new version of me, not a different person. I guess I can have faith that this new inventory thing that I am doing will have a similar effect upon me. I can look forward to a new version of me. And I guess I can handle that. We'll see what tomorrow's writing session brings for me...

Monday, some steps, and money issues

Up early, swallowed some pride, got some help, did an estimate, offered some advice, did a favor for a friend, had a nice visit and yummy lunch, and headed home. Over all, not a bad day. Tomorrow will hold some similar kinds of plans. Probably some humility in the morning, followed by some work stuff, and then some recovery work. Not much glory on the agenda, but that's okay.

I find that I am still healing. I told some friends today about some of the support I got to my blog posts in the past week, about how Jen in Denver lit a candle at the same time we were having a candle-light church service here, and I started to cry. I didn't fight it, just told the story, let the tears flow, and mopped up when I was done. It seems to be going that way. I am not fighting the feelings. Which for me is a pretty big deal. I spent a lot of time and energy trying to avoid my feelings, so just letting them be is remarkable.

I have some work to do on myself these days. I need to address my relationship with money. It is a huge scary thing for me to undertake. I need to apply the same kind of effort to this endeavor as I do to my sobriety. I am tired of being broke. I am tired of owing people. I am tired of the anxiety associated with this stuff. I dearly hope I have had enough. I need to apply the tools I learned in my recovery program to the problem at hand. I need to come to grips with what I am powerless over and what I am not, I need to know where and how to ask for help, and then I need to do that. And then I need to take areal and meaningful inventory of my behavior and feelings around money. It's going to be a big job, but it needs doing and each day that passes is more time I spend on the unhealthy side of this equation. And I would like to think I have had enough of that.

I also need to deal with this stuff if I am going to have any credibility when it comes to being a financial fund raiser. How can I tell members of a church or a non-profit how to raise money, how to be transparent, how to get over their shame and secrecy issues when it comes to money if I am unable or unwilling to discuss my own affairs frankly? If I am going to seriously think about creating a business where I help groups and organizations raise money, I need to be able to speak honestly and with integrity and authority.

So, tomorrow I start anew on this journey. That's the plan. I shall report as I am able. It may or may not prove to be compelling reading, we'll have to see what I discover.

Rainy Saturday

It seem like I have been going like mad lately, and in great need of a break. The weather this weekend was predicted to be rain followed by rain, followed by showers. Fine, says I, I'll plan to spend the weekend in the basement welding odd bits of metal together to make something interesting.

Only this morning I awoke to find that it wasn't raining. Oh man. In fact, it was kinda nice. The sun even peeked through the clouds for a moment. Ok, then, says I; I'll build the new front steps. Start the burn barrel going to get rid of the accumulated scrap lumber and build the steps. Got the barrel started, chatted with the landlord (heckuva nice guy) and got set up to build the steps. Hmmm. had to reconfigure what I wanted to do dimension-wise, but that's ok. Scratch my head for a bit, got it. Make one cut, fine. Make two cuts, fine. Draw the third line - the raindrops start. Shit.

Shit, shit, double-shit. Maybe it'll pass. I try the Catholic approach (head down, deny anything unpleasant is happening) and finally give in and sprint around the yard to get the tools into the back of the truck. I laid two 12-foot pieces of pressure treated decking on top of the truck's cap and laid a tarp over it so I could sit on the tailgate without getting drenched. I sat. And sat. And cursed the rain. And watched my burning scrap sputter and spark in the downpour.

Finally I got up and went into the house to look at the weather map. Oh hell. I stayed inside and did dishes. Then I made lunch. Then, finally, the rain cleared. I went out, stoked up the burn pile into something respectable, made two cuts and the rain began again. I continued to nail in the rain until I felt the back of my shirt clinging to my skin at the belt line, at which point I retreated to the tailgate again, grumbling. Occasionally I would poke at the tarp to drive off the puddles that were accumulating up there. It was fun to watch the water cascade off into the driveway.

I noticed something as I sat out there. I mean aside from the wet and the chill and the soggy smoke smell. Grass is extra green in the rain. I had forgotten that. The robins were out in force, never mind the rain, hopping around pulling up prime bait to feed their babies. All of the trees have leaves now. All of a sudden, too. It seems like last week everything was still budding out, but today everything has leaves. I could hear the rain hitting them. It was very nice. Even the bamboo where the hummingbirds live has leafed out. For an invasive species, it's kinda pretty. And the hummers like it.

I guess I needed the break that the rain provided. I suppose I could still go downstairs and cut and grind and weld, but it's nice up here, going in and out of the house in accordance with the rain showers and the weather radar. Well, that, and I already took off the old steps. So I think I have to keep at this until it's done. I will just have to learn to adjust my pace to nature's moods. And I think that could be exactly what I have needed to do.