Last night I was grateful to have found a recording of my friend Blind Dave doing a workshop on steps 1,2, and 3 at a rather large AA convention. I was really impressed again to hear how good of a speaker he is. I found myself envying his ability until I remembered that he used to be a preacher and that's why he has so much experience.

Tonight I watched a show about the Seven Deadly Sins with my son. It was a really good show that explored the sins and the consequences of them from an objective and practical perspective. It explored the religious origins of the moral code but also the psychological and instinctual origins of the sins themselves.

I found the approaches to studying and correcting the behaviors to be very interesting in that people often lean too far in one direction or the other. In one superstitious extreme some believe that people with sin disorders to be possessed and that exorcism alone to be the solution without regard for the long term habits that are ingrained behaviors and require continued therapy. Others look solely to the brain chemistry and think that chemical balance is the solution. They look at the electrical activity in the brain and identify what are a sin resides in. In other words trying to fix a software problem with a hardware solution.

I believe that sins are a problem of the mind, not the brain, and not demonic possession. I believe that the mind is just the vessel of the feelings, conceptions, and spirit of a person. I think that the chemicals and electronic impulses are just the carriers of the thought processes and the chemical imbalances are caused by imbalanced thoughts or sins. If you change the thinking and behavior then the brain mechanics will reflect this. I think that spiritual beings do exert some influence but that it requires our participation until we indulge in the sins to the extent that we become possessed. But, the solution to exorcise the possession is to exorcise the sin.

Today I was grateful that I was well enough to make it to work even though I was sick to my stomach and I gradually got better.
I was grateful that we closed at noon.
I was grateful that my son has a friend that likes baseball and he got us to practice.
I griped at the kids too much a few times.

Tonight at the end of our prayers, my oldest son and I reflected on a good year and thanked God. I look for to another great year coming up, they just keep getting better and better.

Thanks be to God.