Psalms for Addicts - Psalm 41

Happy is one who is compassionate toward those who lack.
God will heal her in the day of her suffering.
She will be upheld and brought to life.
She will live happily on earth.

Do not let us be consumed by the greed of addiction.
Support us in our sickness.
Catalyze our lethargy; turn us around.

As for me, I cry, “Show Your care.
Heal me for I have wandered away from You.”
Fear speaks malice inside me, saying,
“When shall she die, and her name perish?”
The voices of addiction come into me, speaking deceit.
They slander me and fill me with lies.
Then I go out and broadcast their fraud.

These voices hate me.
Their whispers are against me.
Imagining the worst of me, they devise my harm, saying,
“Evil clings to her. She is dying and can never recover.”

Even my best friend, the one I trusted,
The one who shared my food,
Has turned against me
And now causes my downfall.

O God, care for me.
Restore my health that I may renounce my true enemy.
And get myself back.

I will know Your delight in me
For my enemies cannot triumph.
If You uphold me, I will enter my heart’s integrity
And live in You forever.

Blessed is the wholeness of those who struggle.
From everlasting to everlasting. Amen, and Amen

An interpretation based on the NIV, the ICEL and the JPS 1917 translation

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Monastic Ticks

Today I got my first tick of the season… and I’m engulfed by sadness, longing for monastic life.

It's a sparkling, clouds sky chasing spring day. Well worth the odd tick to walk in slanting sun and deep shade woods or baby green grass, prairie fields. (‘Though imagining a tick in every little skin itch is an annoying side-effect.)

Intellectually, I know that particular monastery with those sisters was not life giving for me. I miss it anyway.

Of course, I can list the good parts of monastery life: the daily psalm chant and meditation schedule, little driving, social detachment yet constant companionship, the focus on spiritual development, the biblical concentration (Of all things! How did that become a good?), living into inspiring land… and the silence and the silence and the silence.

But what I really miss is the way those conditions made it easy to fall into divine unity… and (‘though I remain embarrassed to say it) a direct connection with Jesus of the "let's sit close and talk" variety.

But both of those could be right here, right now – if only I let go of comforting distraction and entered the barrenness that lies waiting under my more dramatic feelings.

That wouldn’t be fun. It's a painful emptiness that feels like choking on fire… and at the same time like an endless stretch of deadly dull, institution-beige-wall, sand-dry, horizon-to-horizon nothing.

I have the requisite cell – my little office. It isn’t ascetically stark, but has a quiet, clean, spacious feel. Instead of emailing or phoning or writing, I could just sit and be present.

So many teachers say that within that desert a living well exists – one that can be found no matter the external conditions. All it takes is entering the emptiness, and the persistence to stay there.

The thing is, I can just sense that well, and my Beloved by it. So why am I out here kicking and screaming with flailing arms and legs, doing everything possible to keep from falling?

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Addiction in an April Blizzard

I love April blizzards.

Everything is in a rush toward summer: the grass greening, bulbs shooting up, the air softening. Then suddenly: a pause. Just for a moment. As soon as the snow stops falling, it melts and the rush to summer is back on.

Yet, a pause…

Like the pause at the top and bottom of each breath. Breathe in. Pause. Breathe out. Pause. (If you’ve never paid enough attention to your breath to experience the pause, try it.)

For a moment the rush of breath is still. In that moment, there is nothing to do. Nothing to get. Nothing to release. Only rest. Only openness.

Only surrender.

“Take pause.” That’s what my friend says, the one who is holding my hand as I climb up from addiction. She says, “Take pause and just notice" - The first and second tools of recovery.

This friend knows from addiction.

I first told her about mine last September. I said I knew they were destroying me and I wanted to tell someone. But I had absolutely no intention of giving them up and didn’t want to hear anything about that.

She said, "You don’t have to start by giving them up. Just pay attention. What does it feel like when you first move toward using? What is going on around you? What messages are you telling yourself? What does it feel like when you are using: in the beginning, and then as your lack of control becomes apparent? How do you feel afterwards? What messages do you tell yourself?”

“You don’t have to do anything else right now,” she added, “Just notice.”

After six months of noticing - and a horrendous two-week binge - I was finally ready to quit.

Then my friend offered tool # 2. When I felt that desire to use, even if I’d already decided to go for it, just pause for a moment.

Just pause.

Even for the briefest of moments, put off acting on the desire. And continue to notice.

That helped. It really helped.

A Sunday morning blizzard in April: time to take pause. And notice.

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The Dead Come Out in March

In winter everything sleeps under cover – so quiet and clean, so empty. I love the sharp, black calligraphy of plant stems rearing above the snow: asters, milkweed, or regal prairie dock. But with March, the sordid dead come out. Cold rain runs uncaring through rotted leaves, sodden sticks and matted grass. Any lingering snow turns gritty dark from the decay heaved to its surface. It might as well be road debris.

Birds swing joyously by, but who else could believe this is the path to life?

Just so the spiritual journey. When in the March of it, I sometimes long for the time I still slept - when I didn’t have to daily sort through yesterday’s corpses. And I wonder why some have their feet placed on the path to wakefulness, with all the pain of learning to see what is. Yet others sleep until the end, never glimpsing what else they could be.

In Wisconsin, like on the spiritual journey, we get fleeting thaws in February – 50 degrees, 60 even, and everything smells of becoming. Then another blizzard or ice storm freezes us over again.

Until March.

Not that the blizzards and freezes are done, but the cold isn’t as deep and the new snow, though piled high, swiftly melts again. So gradually the periods of warm become longer and longer. Then the decomposing bodies of last year’s dead feed this year’s spring...

As far as my spiritual journey is concerned, I can only trust that the future will be as rich.

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Outer War, Inner Peace

"It is like a war zone in here," said a friend who is struggling to live authentically, centered in her sense of direct connection to God.

"Yes. And that is why it is a war zone out there," I instantly responded. Then I had to stop and think what I meant.

To live authentically from one's center means being present to every pain that arises without trying to fix, suppress or anesthetize the hurt. And that requires the practice of opening old wounds and being to the pain as it processes through. Watching what comes up and letting what comes come. Acknowledging that what is, is.

And maybe ('though I'm pretty sure of this) all the wars - from the dysfunctional family, tiptoeing warily around each other until the next insignificant event triggers an explosion, to international fights that burn and crush millions - maybe all are the outer, physical expression of unresolved, inner battles. Physical, worldly conflicts arise, creating huge suffering, because so many people refuse to do their own, inner work. Because so many choose instead to push pain away with various means of numbing, distracting and justifying.

So we fight wars... just to avoid being with our own pain.

As so many spiritual teachers say, "If you want world peace and an end to suffering, do your inner work."

And maybe this is true because the physical universe, along with all of us humans, is a single energy field. If we are ALL inseparable parts of one whole, it is a contradiction to say you want peace while concentrating on outward displays of anger at those you believe caused the conflict - much less physically fighting them. That is like standing in a stormy sea throwing rocks at the waves while shouting "CALM DOWN."

It only riles things up more.

Yet if just one molecule of the water became calm for even a moment, the overall calm of the whole would go up.

Because the universe is a single field, if and when, for a moment or a day, any one of us breaks through our shit to rest in inner peace, the peacefulness quotient of the whole universe goes up.

Dogen Zenji said,

"To study the Way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.
To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barrier between one's self and others."

When what was perceived as "other" becomes perceived as "self," lashing out in anger makes no more sense then dropping napalm on your toe as punishment for it hurting you after it stubbed itself.

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