To Fully Embrace Love is to Fully Embrace Life

I enjoy blogging and returning later on to re-read the blogs because it's just what I needed to remember.  I feel happy and grateful to know there are others separate from me who benefit. If this blog helps anybody else in any small way...that's more than enough.  Glad to be of service.

Yesterday I read a lovely quote in Alanon's meditation "Hope for Today" book:

     "I used to believe thinking was the highest function of human beings...I now realize loving is our supreme function.  The heart precedes the mind." from Lois Remembers, page 196

Lois touches my core issues with this quote.  My biggest struggles in life have been grounded in   my "thinking".  I learned to "live" in my head early on as a child.  I could think whatever I wanted and as long as I didn't let anybody know what I really thought or felt...I was safe.  I only spoke up when it was imperative, more dangerous not to speak up than to speak, etc.  I learned to rely on whatever I thought was in my best interest without letting on because if people knew (like my brothers, Ray and Rudy) I might be sabotaged  denied, punished, deprived just because I wanted it.  A form of punishment so I "learned a lesson".

You know, it seems to me, one of the greatest socially accepted forms of pscyhe abuse is "teaching a lesson" to another person.  After all, there's so much for me to learn, so much further to go.  Who am I to go around punishing people by "teaching them a lesson"?  When I punish someone by "teaching" them a lesson I am in GOD's business as if I know better and can do a better job than GOD.  W-a-y off course.  In the abyss.

A big challenge for me has been to learn to stay out of the "Changes Other People Need To Make" business and instead get busy working the Steps on the many changes I need to make!

Dear Sweet GOD Almighty, thank YOU for the multiple opportunities You provide for me to learn, grow, and stretch in the Sunlight of the Spirit.  Thank YOU for loving me, creating me, and giving me this incredible gift called "Life", one minute at a time, one day at a time.  I love You and thank You for loving me.  Sincerely, Carl xoxox