Why AlAnon?

Day 1              A steps on B’s toe

                        B: “Excuse me, you stepped on my toe.”

Day 2              A steps on B’s toe

                        B: “EXCUSE ME! You stepped on my toe.”

Day 3              A steps on B’s toe

                        B: “What’s the matter with you? You stepped on my toe again. 

                        Stop it.”

Day 4              A steps on B’s toe

                        B: “Are you deaf?  If you step on my toe one more time, I’m

                        calling the police.”

Day 5              A steps on B’s toe

                        B: “You don’t believe I’ll call the police??  Step on my toe one

                        more time and you’ll  become a believer!”

Day 6              A steps on B’s toe

                        B: “Do you want to go to jail??  You must want to spend a few

                        nights in jail.  Why else would you keep stepping on my toe?!

Day 7              A steps on B’s toe

                        B: “Do you see what you have become?  You are nothing but

                        a god-awful toe stepper!  That’s all you are!  You live to step

                        on toes.  How long do you think I’m going to put up with this?

Day 8              A walks into B’s room

                        B: “Here’s my toe.”

This little light of mine...

So long as patriarchal, legalistic, fundamentalist Christian churches continue to exist there will also and always be men and more women who yearn to escape into a larger, more open worldview. I want to be one of the guides who serve as a companion and supporter for those who feel drawn to move out into a wider, taller, bigger faith. 

I, and many others, have walked that walk, and God knows I love to talk the talk!  Lest I be misunderstood, let me acknowledge at the outset that for millions of people fundamentalist Christian churches feel like home; I respect that choice and would not attempt to “lure” anyone out of a religious community that feels right for them.

Yet for those who feel their church or faith is too tight a fit; who feel judged and restrained, who are tired of pretending they are who they are not; who have the pervasive feeling that much of the teachings don’t make intellectual sense, and who suspect the Bible is not the be all and end all, especially when interpreted as literal truth, I want to hold up a lantern that lights the way to well-worn paths out.

Before I learned to meditate...

Our Sunday School class is reviewing a DVD of a dialogue between Ken Wilbur and Thomas Keating, which is sparking lots of memories for me.  I learned to meditate more than 20 years ago and soon after was privileged to view many instructional DVD’s of Father Keating teaching his method of contemplation, Centering Prayer.  A few years later I completed the initial training to be certified to teach Centering Prayer.  Quite simply, it changed my life.

Before I learned to meditate I had little or no experience of the meaning of the word, “serenity.”

Before I learned to meditate I believed myself to be undisciplined and impulsive.

Before I learned to meditate I was afraid of my own mind.

Before I learned to meditate “time stopping” was foreign to me.

Before I learned to pray in silence “the indwelling Holy Spirit” was merely theoretical.

Before I learned to pray in silence I had little access to my own Voice of Loving Kindness.

Before I learned to pray in silence I did not know it possible to rest in God.

Before I learned to pray in silence I would seek but rarely find.

The Well

There is within me, within you,

A sacred well of clear, running water

That has never seen taint or corruption.

This interior well, my Being, has never been soiled,

Or hurt, or scarred, or broken, or crushed.

Because this Well is not of my creation,

I can’t kill it, manipulate it, command it, or control it.

The only choice I have is whether to

Ignore it, deny it, forget it, or

Turn to it, lean into it, rest in it, and drink it.