#109 The Pattern of Transformation

This is a companion piece to episode 108. The process of Order, Disorder & Reorder is the process of transformation. Old ideas have to be evacuated to make room for the new ideas, the growth is painful because of our clinging. Its a process of Admission (step 1) Submission )steps 2-7) Restitution (steps 8-9, and Constriction of a new life (steps 10-12) this includes a great group discussion as well....enjoy

Transcript

Welcome And The Transformation Map

SPEAKER_13 0:04

Welcome to the gathering. If you're if you're uh streaming us, this will be um a talk on the uh progression of the spiritual experience, right? And we're gonna use a model that Richard Rohr is using. If you if you want the backfill on this, it's the talk before this, 108. We talk about four world views: material, spiritual, priestly, incarnational. So if you want background on what we're talking about, that's where you find it on 108. So a little reading, a little reflection. So this is his idea, and you can correlate this. He talks about order, the pattern of spiritual transformation, order, disorder, reorder. And um we'll go through this and we'll align some of the things we do with what they're I'll need. My glasses. Okay, this is Richard Rohr. Even inside an incarnational worldview, we grow by passing beyond some perfect order, a usually painful and seemingly unnecessary disorder to an enlightened reorder or resurrection. In our book, we talk about being reborn, same idea, raised from the dead, raised from the mess. This is the pattern that connects and solidifies our relationship with everything around us, the pattern of growing in spirit and hence in community, and realizing at one or more levels we're all connected. The trajectory of transformation and growth, as I see the great religious and philosophical traditions charting it, uses many metaphors for this pattern. We can point to the classic hero's journey by Joseph Campbell, four seasons or four directions of most native religions, epic accounts of Exodus, exile, the promised land of Jewish people, followed by the cross, death, and resurrection narrative of Christianity, or the narrative of the 12 steps at a spiritual awakening as the result of these exercises. So here I offer a distillation that might help you see all these trajectories in a common and very simple, almost too simple way. Each of these myths, and each in its own way, is saying that growth happens in this full sequence. To grow towards love, union, salvation, or enlightenment. I use the words interchangeably, or you could say God, we must be moved from order to disorder and then ultimately to reorder. That's our story. Start out in this place as a little boy, as a young man, teenager, adult, and we get to the point where it breaks. And I need a new system, right? And that's that's the reorder. That's the disorder, and then out of that comes the reorder. So the order. At this first stage, this is the first one, order. We're granted it. But and not all are. We feel innocent and safe. Everything is basically good, it all means something, and we feel a part of what looks normal and deserved. This is your childhood. If you had a good one, it explains everything that feels like it is straight from God, solid and forever, or this is the way it should always have been. Right? I never worried about food, I never worried about shelter. I took everything for granted, and I just thought, well, that's the way it is, right? Those who try to stay in this first satisfying explanation of how things are and should be will tend to refuse and avoid any confusion, conflict, inconsistency, suffering, or darkness. Anything that challenges the form. They don't like disorder in any form. Even many Christians do not like anything that looks like carrying the cross. This is the huge price we paid for just thanking Jesus for what he did on the cross instead of actually imitating him. There's another riff in that in in uh Sermon on the Mount, Fox emphasizes over and over. Jesus didn't say worship me, he said follow me. That's what your sponsor is saying, follow me. Watch the example, the demonstration, and recreate that. Disorder or change is always to be avoided. The ego believes the false self, the beast, I call it. So let's just hunker down and pretend that my status quo is entirely good. Should be good for everybody, and it always is true, and even the only truth. But permanent residence in this stage tends to create either willing, willingly naive people or control freaks. And very often a combination of both, I found in invariably operates from a worldview of lack, scarcity, hardly ever from abundance. So I've got, remember Thomas Keating's program for happiness. Merton called it um your private salvation project. And uh I love that. And that's that idea that I have in the beginning. So I'm not safe. I'm insecure, and what I come up with is this paradigm that says this is not a safe place, it's a dog-eat dog world, watch your back, because everyone's in it for themselves, and everyone wants something you have. Everyone is a potential threat. So, and clinging to that through my youth, through my teen years, into my early adult years, right? Because that's the only thing that made sense. So, what I'm operating on was lack and fear. There's not enough, and I'm scared I'm gonna lose something I have or not get something I want. Now the disorder stage. Eventually, your ideally ordered universe, your private salvation project, as Merton called it, must and will disappoint you, if you're honest. My program for happiness has not worked. I mean, that was why we were drinking, that's why we were running, that's why we were working ourselves to death, that's why we were promiscuous, that was why we were doing everything. Because it wasn't working, and I didn't know what to do. So I just hunkered down and tried harder. As Leonard Cohen puts it, there's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. Those cracks are our defects. In the beginning, they're our prison, but as we get to the disorder stage, the cracks are what are going to let the new ideas in because of our suffering and our pain. So your wife dies, your father loses a job, you're rejected on the playground as a child, you find out you're needy and sexual, you fail an exam for a covenant certification, or you finally realize that many people are excluded from your own well-deserved life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is the disorder stage, or what we call from the Adam and Eve story, the fall. Now I'm disconnected. It's necessary in some form, if any real growth is to occur, but some of us find this stage so uncomfortable, we try to flee back to our first created order, even if it's killing us. That's the beast. I know this isn't working. I'm drinking myself to death. I'm getting my life's getting chewed up incrementally, but I still think I can find a way. That's going back to the phase that doesn't work. That's the beast job. It says, you don't want to change. You don't want to change. We can work this out. Just try harder, read another book, get another girlfriend, get another boyfriend, get another dog, get another motorcycle, move, get a new house, get a new apartment, get new friends. No, you can't have friends, can't trust anyone. Others today seem to have been given up to this and decided that there's no universal order, or at least no order we will submit to. That's the postmodern stance with distrust, it just which distrusts all grand narratives, ideas, ideologies, and globalism, including often any notions of reason, a common human nature, social progress, universal human norms, absolute truth, objective reality, the spiritual dimension, much of the chaos that reigns in the American culture and government these days is the direct result of such a post-truth society. Permanent residence in this stage tends to make people rather negative and cynical, usually angry and quite opinionated and dogmatic about one form of political correctness or another. Tribalism. Now we're divided. We're not, there's not a unity. What we do in a recovery is we find a hyper-cooperative environment to do our work in. So we end up in silos. Some accuse religious people of being overly dogmatic, yet these this stymied position worships disorder itself as though it were a dogma. I reject all universal explanations except one. There are no universal explanations. It seems to be saying such universal cynicism and skepticism become their universal explanation, their operative religion, and also their greatest vulnerability. Remember, religion is what you're bound to, what you're tied to, your attitude. So then this is what we call our bottom. Everything has stopped working, the wheels are off, and I can't take another step. Right? Now he comes into the reorder stage. Every religion, each in its own way, is talking about getting you to this reorder stage. Various systems would call it enlightenment, exodus, nirvana, heaven, salvation, springtime, resurrection, or even spiritual awakening. It's the life on the other side of death, the victory on the other side of failure, the joy on the other side of pains of childbirth. It is an insistence on going through, not under, over, or around. There's no nonstop flight to reorder. There's no shortcut to your recovery. To arrive there, we must endure, learn from, and include the disorder stage, transcending first naive order, but also including it. It amounts to the best of the conservative and the best of the liberal positions. They hold on to what was good about the first order, but also offer it very needed correctives. People who have reached this stage, like the Jewish prophets, might be called radical traditionists, loving their truth and their group enough to criticize, criticize it, critiquing it enough to maintain their own integrity and intelligence. These wise ones have stopped overreacting, but also over-defending. They're usually a minority. So now, this is the transition we go through with our collapse. We have to go through this. We can't go around it. There are no shortcuts. It's painful because the beast is clinging to the old way of thinking, the old way of acting and being. That's the pain, is the lack of letting go. So I have to go through this. And the promise is if you go through this, you'll come out better than when you start it, right? This is interesting, this next part. Based on the years of spiritual direction with people, both in the United States and in other countries, I observed that the implications of this journey are different from those who identify either as conservative or liberal. Conservatives must let go of their illusion they can order and control the world through religion, money, or in politics. This is often their real security system. Our security system is the ideas and the concepts we're clinging to that we think are going to serve us and keep us safe. This is often the real security system. Their intense religious language often shows itself to be a pretense and a cover for a very conservative politics. True release of control to God will show itself as compassion, generosity, less boundary keeping. As we grow, we become a community. That's what he's saying. And your narrow views that you cling to keep you stuck in an us and them posture and a right or wrong posture. And it's another way of describing, you know, when you've had or are having this change process go on in your life, one of the ways you'll see it is you become more compassionate and generous and less argumentative about your boundaries and what's right and what's wrong. Because I have an enormous amount of evidence to know that I never know what's right or wrong. I mean, I I can dress up a wrong idea like a right idea exquisitely, but I always know when it's wrong. In here, you always know this isn't okay. Is it loving? Is it kind? Is it helpful? So now the liberals. However, they must surrender their belief in permanent disorder and their horror of all leadership, eldering or authority, and find what was good and healthy and truly, deeply true about a foundational order. This will normally be experienced as a move toward humility and real community, a gathering of, a coalescing together. They must stop reacting against all authority and tradition and recognize these are necessary for continuity in culture, along with the basic mental health, which allows them to belong to something besides themselves, and then ideally belong to something that's bigger than you. My relationship with God, the Creator, bigger than me, right? It's something I can serve. You know, as you grow in this, we were talking before the meeting couple of bus, as you grow in this thing, the longer you're here, the more you realize what a gift it is to be here. Because people like me don't live to be 77. They die in their 20s and 30s. So but also this is a process of celebration and grief, of gain and loss. We start by taking apart our old ideas that don't work, and that feels like a loss. We replace them with new ideas, that feels like a celebration. But as you grow and evolve, so does the beast. So does the beast. And so I have to keep evolving in my spirit and in my practice because there is no standing still. If I'm standing still for me, I'm going backwards. I'm not saying for you, but that's been my experience. There's no standing still. Now I can proceed forward at a creep. That's okay. Because I regulate the speed at which it happens, depending on how enamored I am with the thing that I'm trying to let go of. Because when we get stuck in trying to let go, we've missed the plot. I'm not supposed to try to let go of what I'm powerless over. I'm supposed to give it to God. That's a seventh step. Sixt and seventh step. I'm clearly this idea. God remove it. God make me different, right? Because I can't. And that's one of the that's one of the beast's most subtle tricks is to quietly get us to work on things that are objectionable to us. And they're always things that coincidentally we're powerless over. And that's where I've got to give it up. So we have this concept of surrender, right? This the 12 steps, the whole process is surrender. I've got to let go of this, I gotta let go of this, I gotta let go of this. And as we go deeper, it doesn't change. It's like, you know, you have uh in the first five years, you're you're trying to get your feet on the ground and find out if this is really gonna work. You start thinking it's gonna work. And five to ten is like, this is pretty cool. I'm making good progress. And then you start running into things because you've done substantial inventory work in 10 and 11 prayer meditation, right? And now you run into a block. You feel like the air is going out of the tires, everything's getting kind of gray, the color's going away. What's that? It's time to move deeper. And it feels like I've been abandoned, but what and nothing's working, but it's really this is what Keating calls emotional debris. I've just gotten to a new level that needs to be excavated. I'm the excavator, I'm the sorter of what I'm digging up, and then God's the arbiter. So to move toward greater wholeness, both groups, each in a different way, must let go of their false innocence, right? My old ideas. My old damn ideas. The ones I cling to. Why? Because it's comfortable. You know, it's like I had a life that was just a mess. But it was like living in a shitty neighborhood. I know how it works, I know how to get around in it. You know, I know how to I know how to live in this chaos and this business, this misery. Or that's what I'm telling myself. So the liberals and the conservatives are seeking separateness and superiority just in different ways. So there's no community there either. There's no joining, there's no common ground. In my language, they must both be somehow be wounded before they give up these foundational illusions. How do I know if I have a foundational illusion? By the result it's giving me. That's the simple answer. By the result it's giving me. So the recovery movement calls this step one, the admission of powerlessness. And what is our system all about? Power. It's all about power. So interesting, right? The journey from um, let's see, the journey from order to disorder to reorder must happen for all of us. It's not something just to be admired in Abraham, Moses, Job, Jesus. Our role is to listen and allow and at least slightly cooperate with this almost natural progression. We all come to wisdom at the major price of both our innocence and our control, our failure. Which means that few are willing to go there. And we never go willingly, do we? We go through the process, and what is the motivator? Pain. It's not I can't wait for my new world. So I don't even believe there's a new world to wait for, right? It's the pain. Later on, you can be disciplined by love. Because your character will evolve, your spirit will evolve, and it becomes more of the regulator of your thinking and your actions. That's from experience using the pause. I want to repeat, there's no nonstop flight from order to reorder, or from disorder to reorder, unless you dip back into what was good and helpful, but also limited about most initial presentations of order, and even the tragedies of disorder, of wounding. Otherwise, you spend much of your life rebelling, reacting, suffocating. I'm not sure why God created the world that way, but I have to trust the universal myths, the stories, between beginning and end, the great stories inevitably reveal a conflict, contradiction, confusion, and the omen of our self-created paradise. I made this world, I shaped it with my ideas and values, and now there's a discontent that I've been neatly trying to ignore for years for some of us, decades for some of us. And now it can no longer be ignored. That divine discontent. It's God calling. And the method, the vehicle is your pathetic life that doesn't work. And can I meet anyone that had a pathetic life and doesn't have a pathetic like anymore? And then I go, oh, I'll have some of that. So this sets the drama in motion and gives it momentum and humility. Everybody, of course, initially shoots for happiness, but most. Most books I've ever read seem to be some version of how suffering refined, taught, and formed us. That's what your story is. That's what your recovery is. The crucible, burning off the stuff that isn't you, that isn't you, that is standing between you and having the relationship with God that you don't know you want to have and be the human being you always wanted to be, but never were capable of being. The suffering's useful if you learn from it. The past is useful if I learn from it. The other stages are useful if I can take what worked and bring that along, that's fine. But don't bring the stuff that doesn't work. Maintaining our initial order is not of itself happiness. Except and wait for a second naivety, more surrender, which is given more than it is created or engineered by us. Happiness is the spiritual outcome and the result of full growth and maturity. And this is why I'm calling it reorder. You're taken to happiness. You cannot find your way there by willpower or cleverness. Yet we try. How do we get? You can't make yourself happy, but we end up happy. We end up with contentment. We end up with purpose and useful lives as a result of removing all the stuff that was making it unmanageable. So we seem insistent on not recognizing the universal pattern of growth and change. Something has to leave for something to take its place. Trees grow strong by reason of winds and storms. Boats were not meant to live in permanent dry duck or harbor. Baby animals must learn, be educated by their mothers in the hard ways of survival, or they almost always die young. Seems that each of us has to learn on our own, with much kicking and screaming, which is well hidden, but also in plain sight. That power was always working in my life, and I couldn't see it. I couldn't interpret it. I didn't have a way of interpreting it. So our order, disorder, and reorder, this idea is a lot of what we talk about in the steps. Admission, step one, submission, two through seven, restitution, eight and nine, creation of a new life, ten, eleven, and twelve. Voila. Welcome home. So let's open it up. Your experience with this. What patterns did you find in your in your rebirth, in your resurrection, in your recovery, in your new life? The most painful lessons were the ones that were the biggest gift, weren't they? Floor's open, go ahead. If you're listening online, it's still in session. We're just waiting for someone to gather themselves and chair.

Fear Of Change And God

SPEAKER_08 25:04

Uh I'll get it started. I'm Dave. I'm an alcoholic. Hey Dave. Um, you know, you mentioned near the end the you know to yet the goal is to be a better you for the uh the reorder. And I I know that from myself, when you when I went back to that early point where I believed I was an atheist and I just got so miserable, I just you know started to just pray out of desperation because I didn't know what else to do. But one of the concerns I had there was you you mentioned earlier lack of letting go. It was fear of what's gonna happen to me if I let go of this life of mine. And you know, and and if I start praying to this God, what's gonna happen to me? Am I gonna end up you know being one of those hard Krishna at the park or something? You know, am I gonna just do this huge change? And in the end, what uh what I came to realize is is what you said there at the end, all God wants is for me to be a better me, you know, and that's and that that is just to be the person I'm supposed to be. And it, you know, and it it did change me in some ways in in that you know, you talked a lot about politics. Um I when I you know he talked about how they get I became less moderate and and started leaning more towards my original political view, uh more that way, uh, which I thought was kind of surprising. Um, but it and I think that's kind of what Richard Rohr is talking about. You you get more political, political, at least if I interpreted what you were saying correctly. Um, and I kind of moved that way. But in the end, um for me, the the the transformation was slow. Um, there were a lot of objections I had to kind of work through, and in the end, it was really all it was just all a process of letting go of my ideas, letting go of you know what I thought God was, and just kind of trying to learn as I go of what the real answers are, I guess. So with that I'll pass.

SPEAKER_13 27:21

Thank you. The uh the problem in that, what you were describing, the problem is the things I cling to. That's addressed in six and seven. The reason I don't want to change is because I'm clinging to this fixed idea or belief, and I'm afraid to let go of it because I don't know what's on the other side. The thing he was saying about politics is they've all got to change. Because they're all doing the same thing from different sides. Your politics just are an example of your values. Where you align yourself. Those are your values. You know. So thank you, Dave.

SPEAKER_07 27:56

Who else I'm David, and I'm an alcoholic.

Tolerance For Ambiguity

SPEAKER_13 28:02

David.

SPEAKER_07 28:03

You know, Richard Rohr has another idea that seems to fit in real nicely with this. And it it's a quote that that has really stuck with me. And it's that as we develop spiritually, we gain a higher tolerance for ambiguity. And it seems that that the beginning of that reorder phase is there's so much uncertainty. What am I going to turn? I I remember sitting in in one of my very first meetings and Roger shared, and I thought, good God, what if I turn into that guy? And it it just there's there's so much ambiguity in that in that phase, and I think, and a lot of us leave then, you know, because of that uncertainty. I I just I don't know what I'm gonna turn into. And it seems to me that that's why we get preached at relentlessly about open-mindedness and willingness. Uh, you know, what if what if this works better than what I've been doing? Um and and I think I think as my tolerance for ambiguity has grown, my willingness to s see this through to the end has grown along with it.

SPEAKER_13 29:27

Yeah, and oh god, I don't want to be that guy. It was twenty-some years ago.

SPEAKER_07 29:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_13 29:35

Twenty-three now? What is it?

SPEAKER_07 29:37

Twenty-four.

SPEAKER_13 29:38

Twenty-four?

SPEAKER_07 29:40

Yeah. God, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_13 29:44

Thanks, Dave.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Everybody fall alcoholic.

SPEAKER_12 29:59

Okay, uh, thanks, Roger, for um picking this up again from from the last time we met and discussed this. I I just a couple things on it tonight. Um I guess you know, you asked about what patterns have we have we become aware of, you know, as a result of kind of moving through moving through these stages. And I think the you know, the one that really two things that emerge for me kind of continually. Um you know, they take on various shapes, but it's my victimhood and my need to uh my need for my need for approval. Those are the two biggest ones that just keep showing up. And I think what what was what's interesting is you said something about uh you know the the uh the beast grows nebuls with us. So the you know for me what that looks like is you know, victimhood and need for approval become a little bit more subtle, but if if I'm really doing inventory on a regular basis, or if I'm pausing throughout the day, I recognize them, even though it's you know, sometimes luckily very, very subtle. The other piece that was kind of cool with this tonight is you talked about or you mentioned in the in the reading the the idea of moving forward with I think it was momentum and humility. And um I think that's really important to realize that you know you have to have both because if or if you have too much momentum, you know, you're gonna kind of take tread, at least my experience is if I have too much momentum, I'm gonna try and I'm not gonna let. If I balance it with humility and the realization that you know, as you know, part of our program, it is a surrender. Um and it's not me that is is is doing this, um, but you know, going through it with with our higher power, with my higher power, that's where the humility part comes in. So that to me, the the the real subtle subtle sentence in that reading, I think, but it there really has to be an awareness and balance of both both things to kind of keep us going. Yeah, that's all I got. Thanks.

Lack Fear And Living In Today

SPEAKER_13 32:42

Thanks. Remember, the incarnation of worldview is is about matter and spirit are understood to have never been separated. Matter and matter and spirit manifest each other. And what you were talking about, oh I forgot what I was gonna say. Oops, it's been one of those days. We all need one good humiliation a day. It was that good. It was, it was so good it just absolutely disappeared. So someone take it up. Oh, it's about try and let I have a goal, say I have some an uh I have a body of work I've got to do in a specific amount of time or something like that. And Emmett has a saying about effort defeating itself. Because what the reason I'm stressed is because the beast is telling me there's not enough time. And history shows there's always enough time. Because everything that needs to get done evidently ever eventually gets done, right? So that when I'm trying, that's the degree to which I'm putting that effort in is the degree to which the ego is manifesting itself. I know it's supposed to happen, when it's supposed to happen, how it's supposed to happen, right?

SPEAKER_09 34:12

Well, Andy of an alcoholic, Andy. You uh you talked about living from a position of lack and fear, tossing some self-reliance. You know, I got this, sprinkle some shame on that. You know, Paul talked about need for approval. When you have a need for approval and shame, and the same thing, it's like I'm a dog chasing my tail. It's like never-ending circle trying to find something that I can never get, you know. Um, and we talk about the easier, softer way, you know, with living that way, so exhausting. In the spiritual path is the easier, softer way. And the only thing that prevents me from sometimes going there is what you just talked about, Roger, that fear of the unknown. I don't know what's going to happen if I take this leap, if I take this action, if I do this thing. The reality is when when I don't know what's going to happen, it's always better than what I expected anyway, because I'm always thinking it's going to be bad. So it's just that releasing that fear, trying to give it, give it over, like you said, the trust. Um easier said than done, but it's a much better path to be on.

SPEAKER_13 35:24

And also the key in this is living in the moment. Because all these problems we're talking about are either in the future, they haven't happened, or they're resurrections of from some ghost of the past. You know, and I I people ask me about this often about goals. I don't have goals, I have directions. You know, and I'm at an age where a lot of my peers are disappearing, you know. He was fine yesterday, and today he's dead, you know. And I've I have something that I remind myself of when I start today, um, I'm one phone call, one accident, one diagnosis away from a completely different life. So this is what I think I'm doing. I think I'm taking my wife out to the acupuncture guide. That's what I think I'm doing. That's my direction. But I have to leave room in case something else happens that I'm not counting on, right? Just and it's not negative, it's leave room for the possibility of something miraculous and wonderful happening. It's not about fear of oh, what's gonna happen? I've never known what's gonna happen, and neither have you. We've never known, and we're screaming for security. God damn it, I just want to know if I do your steps, am I gonna like the person I become? The answer is you have to do it to find out. It's insane. The dog chasing his tail metaphor, and every once in a while he catches it, and then he goes, I don't know what to do with this. Now I'm all tied in a knot. Good, thank you. Good, good stuff, guys. Who else?

SPEAKER_10 37:03

Roger and it's Doug here. Uh uh this this has been quite a journey tonight. Uh also flooding into my mind here, but uh, one of the things that that has occurred to me, and I I remember the out of the book, more will be revealed to me when I'm ready. You know, and I think back early on when I was in AA meetings, uh uh a lot of the things that I was experiencing at that time was prove it, prove it to me. You know, why should I believe it? Just what you said, you know. Uh, but at the same time, I I want to hear what they have to say. And I started watching people um as part of the proof process, I get, you know, and I remember talking about a particular problem, and right now I don't remember the problem, so apparently it wasn't very big. And I apologized to the group by saying, you know, I talk about this problem all the time. And they said, That's okay. Talk about it as long as you want, but don't forget to listen because we think the answer will probably be here, or as you continue on your journey, the answer will be revealed to you. You know, I did a lot of this stuff for spite. You know, I'm gonna prove you guys wrong. It can't be that way. My ego is saying that. It can't be that way. Besides that, why are you so happy?

SPEAKER_13 38:49

That's the only way you can that's the only way you can find it out. I took action to do things.

SPEAKER_10 38:56

My point is, I guess, as as continuing to going to the meetings, as I was told to do by a guy been in treatment for 23 times, he said, Doug, you've got to go. Okay, damn it, I'll go. Is I kept learning new things that kept me hungry. And I kept seeing these people that would come back again and again and again, and I begin to think, I think there might be something here that works. Maybe, just maybe I can trust them. They look good, they sound good, and they smell good. I think maybe I'll I'll do that. I remember talking to a to a counselor at one point in time in early sobriety, and I said, God, I feel awful. You know, I had just done a fifth step, fourth and fifth step. I said, geez, I feel awful. Well, what's wrong? I'm empty. I feel empty, it's scary. I don't I'm used to chaos, I feel empty. Well, fill it with something good. What the hell is good? So, you know, I go back to the meetings. What's good, guys? What's good? Hey, get a hobby, smell the roses. Don't you remember good feelings that you had when you were growing up? Okay, okay. But you know, my point is the meetings for me, I think, are what saved me and put me on the track. The very tracks you're talking about tonight, uh, that Roar talks about, which by the way, his book is just absolutely fantastic, uh, is the willingness. I'm gonna go one more meeting and see what it's like. But the willingness to pay attention and to try it on to see if it fit. And so far it's fit. Thanks.

Motives Service And Real Experience

SPEAKER_13 40:52

Thanks, Doug. You gotta stay long enough to have an experience. Yeah. And the only way you can have an experience is to take the action. And, you know, I was thinking about something Paul said. You know, the subtlety of this thing, you on paper, you could be doing everything right. You know, I'm really busy in AA. I got all these commitments, I'm doing all this shit. But at the same time, I'm growing more and more dissatisfied, and I don't know why. And it's because the motive is self-aggrandizement. The motive is, I want you to see what a good AA I am, how how busy I am. You know, and it's and as soon as I see that, and I go, no, no, no, you're supposed to be doing this for fun and for free, to give back to what saved your life. Oh, and then when you see the motive of that, and you change it to the compassion, the empathy, and the love, you get a whole different result. I'm still tired, but I don't really care if anyone said anything, pro or con. Because I know why I was doing what I was doing. I was there to contribute and make it better for someone else. And you know this, all of you know this from being in meetings. You don't ever know when you're gonna hear something that lights you up or pisses you off. You don't know, but either way, you've got to do something with it, right? It's beautiful, it's beautiful, it's experiential. It's the difference between knowledge about, which is informational. I got a lot of knowledge. I can quote the big book here, I can tell you the page numbers, I can recite the whole damn thing. I just can't do it. That's knowledge of. And to do that, you have to risk your imperfection because that's what's going to be exposed. I have ideas that are imperfect and they don't serve me. And the only way I can do that is to examine them through the lens of my history, my experience. That's what your four steps say. When you get over that nasty fourth column, it was, how are you with all this other stuff? Because you're, by the way, the only common denominator. Ego deflation and depth.

The Beast And Spiritual Armor

SPEAKER_05 43:07

Who else? Justin. Justin had a coca-holic. Hey, Justin. Hi Justin. Oh boy. Well, I'll tell you what I can share on this. What Roger spoke. First off, thank you, Roger. Um that was a lot of information. Kind of got my brain fried. What got my interest is everyone shares. Um in the experience that I'm going through right now, one of the realizations that I literally had today was um the beast played the greatest trick on me. See, I always thought it was everybody else and everyone, everything else that was happening. It was a self imposed crisis constantly, but I couldn't see that because I could not. Look in the mirror at it. And this jail that I put myself in, I had no idea that the fucking door wasn't locked. I could just push it open and walk out. But the fear of walking out into that, into the unknown, it's almost like, you know, they say you get institutionalized. Well, I just got so institutionalized with all the treatments and all the coming and going, coming and going. I what would happen if this worked as a feast? But here's the the the great part is uh I think Annie brought it up the easier softer way. This is the easier softer way. Oh my god. My God. I had no, I mean there the the the beast still comes to me every day and says, Don't worry, the other shoe's gonna drop. This is not gonna last. This will not last. And he he tried all day today. And the funny part was is I it just didn't, it just bounced off me today. And it was great. I just there's no thoughts. And I just it the realization that this only happens if I take these actions that frankly, as I'm if I'm being completely honest, I didn't believe them. I didn't believe that this would work. I thought it would work for everyone else, and I thought if I set enough AA meetings or enough treatments by osmosis, I could get this. Um, but it's not, it's I have to take the step, and to do that, um and I guess I don't care. It took me 47 years to get here because the the just what the experience I'm having right now, I wish everyone could have. I I just it's it's unbelievable. And I I'm so grateful and so thankful that that that this is happening. But I do also gotta know, uh, you're right, Roger, that the beast grows because um I gotta stay away from doing hand-to-hand combat with the beast because I am no match for that. Because one, I know it's not real, but then he spins me up and I'm fighting myself in the dark. But I gotta be careful and I gotta keep moving forward. I gotta keep doing the next right thing and keep keep at this because I don't want to lose it. So thank you all. With that, I'll pass.

SPEAKER_13 46:30

Thanks, Justin.

SPEAKER_05 46:31

Thanks, Justin.

SPEAKER_13 46:33

Vigilance and persistence. The reason the beast is bouncing off is because you had your spiritual armor on. It just you know, that doesn't work. I'm not listening to you. But you know, later on, the beast becomes an asset. Because when I feel when I hear the beast, I'm going, oh, that's an indicator. Turn back to God. You're getting a little off the path. So now the beast becomes an asset when it's not running my life and when I'm not trying to fight with something that I have no power over, right? Because ultimately, what is our power? What we're thinking. Except what I can't change and change what I can, and the only thing I can change is me and my attitude, my thoughts, which will inform my actions. Well, so thank you. Good one, Justin.

SPEAKER_06 47:29

I'm Kirsten Alcoholic. Hi Kirsten. Great. Thank you so much, Justin. So awesome to listen to. Um I I'm kind of a maniac up here. Like I'll I'll uh beat myself up and then I'll say, oh, I get to go to the gathering tonight, and then I'm happy, and then I'm on my way, and I'm like observing. I'm always looking forward to the gathering. This is great. Isn't it great? I turned a corner. I'm I want to go to a meeting. Not that this is AA, but you know what I'm saying. I I and when I was young, when I was young in sobriety in recovery, it was like, I will go to these meetings and I have to go until I want to go to the meetings, right? And I always want to go to meetings now, but it's been a while. But all of that, observing these things in my head, like beating myself up like I wish I could have accomplished more today, or this is too much for me. Why do I always do this to myself? All that kind of stuff. And then I look up and I see these two bunnies racing around in the yard, just chasing each other, having a great time. And I'm like, thanks, God. That's right. I remember now. And uh what Roger was just saying about our armor really is a relationship with God, or the creator is my favorite, um, my favorite uh charm for God. Uh Creator didn't make me to be miserable. Creator loves me so profoundly that he shows up with these bunnies chasing in the yard when I'm starting to get all pissy about I'm overwhelmed. I bet off more than I can chew again. Oh, Kirsten, you'll never quit, you know, all of that beastie junk in my head. Um but it takes practice to observe those things, you know, and and I think a lot of people wouldn't probably see those bunnies in the yard chasing each other and say, Oh, thank you, God. But I do, and it works for me. Um I I think that my disorder was definitely my bottom. The reorder for me goes where Richard was talking about order, disorder, reorder. The reorder for me is a daily thing. You know, I still get the the beast in there, I still get ego, I still, you know, I have to keep observing those moments where I take better care of myself, where I don't procrastinate like I used to. We were just watching the news and tax day, and I got our taxes done in it. And and my husband says to me, Oh man, I can't believe people are still worrying about that. And I'm like, remember, David, when we first got married and I was doing taxes on April 15th at 10 o'clock at night, you know, because I used to procrastinate all the stuff, and now I'm you know, adulting as a person in recovery, and I take care of the things that cause me suffering, taxes being one of them, you know, procrastination being one of them. Um it's it's uh, you know, God wants me to be calm and peaceful and enjoying my life experience, this little blip that I get um on this on this earth. And so the more I become um less afraid to do things like paperwork and taxes and all this junk that I used to procrastinate, the more I am calm and and the kinder I am to my fellows, the better I sleep at night. You know, if I'm kicking ass and taking names like I used to when I was using, it was just I just couldn't keep up with all the anger and all the judgment and all of the disgruntledness and irritability and all of that stuff. Um, just this program has just taught me how to live a much better life. I still, you know, uh leave the spiritual realm many times a day, but probably most of the time, but I always have that spiritual armor that Roger talked about with Justin. You know, all I have to do is remember, okay, I'm feeling discontented. What's the answer? Creator, of course. And um so the reorder um is I think the rest of my life. Probably that's why it's the last stage that Richard Rohr talks about. But um anyway, the shares tonight have been awesome. The content also awesome. I love that book, The Universal Christ. It's amazing. Um anyway, uh that's kind of rambly, but I will pass. Thank you. Yes, I love it, Roger. There's a podcast, by the way. Richard Rohr has a podcast for that whole book and it takes you through it for discussion. So yeah, if uh you're a reader.

SPEAKER_13 52:08

Yeah, Justin, comment. I realize it's a ton of information. It's a ton of things to think about. It's not one thing to think about, it's 50 things to think about, but it's just a stimulant. You know, and if you want to really get into it, get the book, The Universe of Christ. And it's it's there. And you can go at any there you go, Allie. You can go to any pace that's comfortable. But just for Justin here, I want a show of hands. How many people when they started this didn't think it would work? Hi, it's everyone, Justin. I guess you're not too damn unique. Just I just I I knew the answer. Who else?

SPEAKER_01 52:57

Um hi, I'm Allie, I'm an alcoholic. Oh, hi, Allie. Hi, and uh what a great meeting. Um, truly uh lifted my spirits. And again, there's the reading and then the shares. Um and um I just was thinking earlier, um, I think it's James Chance who said, you know, everybody's got goals. I mean, the person who gets, you know, wins the race or whatever has the same goal as the guy who lost the race. It's like, how did they get there? You know, it was the the habits, the patterns that they used to get there. So um that really sort of changed my perspective on goals. Um, but I also um when um someone was sharing about uh living uh living from lack and fear and need for approval plus shame. Um I'm going, um I am I mentioned um I'm on vacation uh in theory, but vacation or leaving leaving my home is kind of like um I align it with like when the tide goes out, you can see all the tires. So I'm usually a wreck before um trying to wrap up as much work as I can and I've got some family stuff going on, et cetera. And then just even getting the it's like I've never flown before every time I need to get to the airport and so forth. But anyway, um I landed in Hawaii, I landed here and I was thinking, you know, I just I know that I'm burned out. It's not like I live this incredibly stressful, horrible life, but I can just feel like I'm at the end of my tether and just need to sort of reset, a reorder, which is interesting. But um I arrived and I had three phone calls, the paramedics asking me if I could meet my mom at the hospital, um, the her PT saying something else, my brother needing money for taxes. And I'm literally standing at baggage claim going, um, well, uh, you know, um, oh uh okay. Or and part of, and it was just I went through this whole range of emotions of like, why the fuck do I have to do that? Can't people deal with themselves? It's like these people not know that I'm on vacation. And, you know, I had to allow myself the like um, you know, pause and try to take these things, but that um kind of it was also said, it's like I could procrastinate and put up some sort of SNP, like, I don't I'm I, you know, these are things I I can't even procrastinate on or, you know, spend a lot of time um thinking, you know, can't these people handle their own lives? Um and then realizing it's like, first of all, I'm uh people's lives don't organize themselves around me. And also about, but also trying to in even with work, it's like it hasn't turned out. I thought I was not gonna have to work. It's just these sorts of things where these aren't um, these are just sort of life things. And I think there's a what was said about like part of me is like wanting to show my coworkers that, you know, what a team player I am, because I'm even working. And part of me is like, but I also our company's in trouble and I need to help out too. So it's this weird balance where like my family needs me to do some stuff. And it's like there's a it's that allowing myself to be due, like I said, a lot of like the why the fucks can't they? And or also like that's not the sober, responsible person. I mean, it's like people are you, I don't get to sort of set aside other people's, you know, needs and whatnot. Um, but I also do have to recognize that when I also when I got here, it's the first time I wanted to drink or thought about drinking in years. But I was just here thinking, I am done with, I am just done um with uh this sort of um, and but it was weird. It was like, okay, you know, so I called and it was just a sort of like again a reminder of um there is um, you know, there there's a solution. And yeah, this stuff is hard, but again, it's like I've I've been I've been letting that anxiety, you know, get I could just feel it on me of like, can you, okay, once I call this like I'll be okay when? It was that whole sort of thing of like, I just have to do this one more thing and then I'll be okay. Or I'll just and just that whole mentality as opposed to thinking, okay, let's just a deep breath, a pause, ask for help. Are we doing, you know, are we hungry, angry, low, angry, lonely, tired? Are we just do some of these basics that um without recovery? I mean, that's how you move through it. This way, I don't create any more chaos or act in a way that is like, see, I knew it. I'm not responsible. I knew it, I'm not, you know, I am a bad person because some of these things I really don't even care what happens, just as long as they get taken care of. And the other thought is the pause that I get after is um instead of my first thought being like, this sounds like a lot of work I don't want to do, it's like, how can I help? And it's not a natural emotion and it's not a hundred percent heartfelt, I'm gonna be honest. Um, but it's just that whole way of again, it's like things aren't, these are just things to work through. They're not problems to be solved. And the last thing I'll just say is that um I had big plans for this trip because um I'm enthusiastic about training at athletics and I pulled something. And so I've been limping around and oh my gosh, it's this whole idea of thinking, I should probably, you know, I I don't have an excuse not to do some of these things I don't want to do because it's not like I'm out there killing it on the marathoning it. I'm, you know, hobbling around. So again, it's just like this is, you know, you we've been talking about, you know, finding a way to, you know, live a balanced life and you know, act your priority, your priorities and so forth. And I'm like, this is so not what I wanted, but it's what I'm going through. And again, I'm um just so grateful for this meeting and the book. And uh thank you for letting me share on.

SPEAKER_13 58:52

There's uh two things that I've come up with for those things that interrupt my groove, and I see them as irritants, I see them as you know, I react and I get pissed, right? What I've learned to do is when I feel that reaction coming, I replace them with this. What the baby in me is saying is why isn't everyone like me? Why don't you all do what I would do? Why don't you all think like I think, right? And that evolved to this, which is I forgive you for not meeting my expectations. I'm sorry, I was wrong. And that's the reset for me. And it it works, but it's like you were saying, I gotta find ways to look at this stuff, interpret it, and find find ways to intervene uh on the beast and these and these crazy ideas. Someone else was talking about, I think it was you, Ellie. Um this isn't an AA meeting, it's a meeting of gathering of souls, that's where the name came from. And it's to have a conversation that you maybe wouldn't have in a regular meeting, you know, and it's to establish a community um where we can sit together because a lot of you have been coming here for years. Uh off and on. But it's okay because now we we have a global outreach too. People are reaching out in Singapore, people are reaching out in Ukraine. I mean, so it's a good thing you're doing. It's we've created a nice thing. It's kind, it's loving, it's compassionate, it's understanding, and it grows as we grow. So one more. Who else?

SPEAKER_11 1:00:36

And uh Clutters Anonymous. And I'm gonna do a little show and tell here. I was at a meeting uh uh and someone was sharing their their faith journey and um and uh just about life, and and she was sharing uh and showing some images, and she was showing it one image of like a tree of life, a really healthy tree with uh all kind of fruit on it. And uh, and then you know, of course, I'm like, ah, yeah. And then uh then she was showing then she was showing about uh a tree being blown in the wind. And um, and I started feeling some emotion and some some some uh tears were welling up in me as we shared in our small group about it, um, because uh I felt like that's where I was at. So um this is actually not my bag, but this is my wife's bag. Oh shoot, you can't see it, can you? Uh picture a tree of life there, lots of fruit. Uh and um, and then the image that she had of the tree was was this. Um, it's uh it's hard to see, but it's blowing completely at a 90-degree angle by the wind. Um, and as I was sharing with my group, uh um someone was saying that what you said in your talk about the wind makes the tree stronger. And um, so I couldn't, I mean that was just so encouraging to me. Um, order felt like the tree of life, uh, disorder felt like I was gonna break, but in actuality, I think it's God making uh me, uh making us stronger. Uh the the uh there's an actual name for uh for that. It and I just happened to look it up. It was it's thigmal morphogenesis, and thigma thigmo means touch, so like the wind, and morpho means appearance, how it changes the appearance. Mostly it makes a trunk and the bark of a tree stronger and thicker. Um, and then genesis, which means beginning or reorder. So I just I just um what you said to me is related to some of the things that I've been uh experiencing. Mostly I just felt more encouraged by the bent over tree than I did by the tree of life, knowing that what I was the pain that I was I've been feeling and the grief that I've been experiencing um is making me stronger. And so I don't know what reorder looks like yet, um, but uh there's encouragement in the disorder that we are getting stronger. And so uh that's all I wanted to share today.

Community Closing And Third Step Prayer

SPEAKER_13 1:03:10

So that's a great place to leave it because our trials are the test, they're not the test of us, they're the test. It's like a spiritual gym, and every time we get through one of those exercises, we're stronger, we're stronger for the stress that we had to go through to learn the lesson, and that's a gift. That's that's uh everything that I've gone through is exactly what I needed to go through to get where I am today. And every one of us designs our own program with our biases and prejudices and where our minds are closed, right? But we all end up in in a similar place, about the same place. I found, established, and I've grown a relationship with something bigger than me. The mystery, the creator, the life force, whatever you want to call it. But I know it's there because of the effect it's produced in my life. It's like I can't prove the wind to you, but I can show you the effect of the wind in the trees, in the grass, and the leaves, right? I can't prove God to you. But I I damn well can demonstrate what the mystery has done in my life, right? And in yours. Because I couldn't be here. We were talking about this before the meeting. I was talking to a guy during the week that was whining about how unfair life was. I said, You're damn lucky it's unfair because if it was fair, we wouldn't be here. Right? Okay. Well, anyway, I love, you know, uh it's been a challenging day for me today. And uh unmute yourselves while we're gonna close. Um it's been a challenging day, but as it is for a lot of you, every time we do this, I'm lifted up by it. No matter how I felt coming into it, I was exhausted, I was tired, I was going, oh God, I can't. I mean, tell you the story. I spent hours today. I got a book, I ordered a book and I got the bank and I ripped it open and I put it in the trash. And later on I was looking for the book and I couldn't find the book. And then I remembered after five hours of going through the house and all the places I'd never been in the house. Then I remembered, oh, it was a pair of glasses I ordered. And I found that I see the box. Oh, now I remember I took the box out and I said, Oh yeah. I mean, welcome to my world. It just doesn't stop, you know. But it's a beautiful thing. We've got Going here. It's a beautiful thing. This is a real community. You know, when you read now and you read um T, you read some of the mystics, a lot of them, they all talk about community. They don't talk about go away, sit in a mountain in a cave and meditate. They talk about get down here and do it in the street. Do it in the dirt. Yeah. Do it in the village, right? And the village. All right. How about uh the third step prayer? Can we do that?

unknown 1:06:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:06:34

All right. God. God.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:36

God offer myself to leave the build with me and to do with me as thou will. I may better do thy will. Victory over there.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:55

May bear witness.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:00

I will love lies. Peace.

SPEAKER_13 1:07:07

That must have been what the Tower of Babel was about. See you in a couple weeks. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

Thanks, Roger. Bye. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:18

Bye, everybody. Bye bye.