This Friday morning I got off to a good start.  I got up on time, got the kids fed and off to school.  I had good energy and initiative and did a great deal of yard work and ran errands.  I finally got my oil changed.  I had some revolutionary thoughts about the spiritual life, I wish that I could remember them.

In the evening I got to go to a 12 step meeting.  I went to one of my favorite groups but found that it was a speaker meeting.  The speaker was a guy that I have seen before who doesn't even attend the fellowship of the group.  Outside the meeting I got to talk to a new person.  When the meeting started I decided to seek out a different group.  

I went to a group that I rarely attend.  Their meeting was an unusual format and an unusual book, "Living Sober".   I have to admit that I almost left that one also due to my preconceptions of that book.  But as the meeting transpired and I read some of the book, I was surprised to find the content appealing.  It seems that with an open mind, through the lens of the 12 step principles, and with consideration of the intention of the book, it was incredibly appealing and made a lot more sense.  I thought of it as sort of a text about the steps before the steps.  I got to meet some good people.

Thanks be to God for this day.

Last night I had a using dream.  It got me thinking that years of engaging in such an arousing activity leave a huge volume of memory that perpetuates itself in the psyche and is the source of the chronic nature of addiction.  Thank God for a process of psychic change in which convictions based on the commands of a higher power are invoked to neutralize the power of arousal.

I had a very hard time waking up this morning but once I got going I had a refreshingly decent sense of initiative and got the outdoor Christmas decorations put away and made a great dent on the leaf cleanup in my yard.  I even had enough energy to play some kickball with my kids.

I went to a meeting at my home group in the evening.  It was a group inventory meeting.  I almost went to a different group as I wasn't enthusiastic about the format.  I was pleasantly surprised at how it went.  I did however notice that there were a number of new faces.  I realized that this is a time of year, right after the holidays, when many new people are prompted to try to get sober.  This gave me a sense of enthusiasm to make meetings.

This morning it was hard to wake up again but I did get up and get the kids to school on time.  Also, I had a normal energy level and didn't feel terribly fatigued (although I was sore from the Wii) and I never had to take a nap.  I did vow to do my best to get to bed on time tonight and I plan to keep that shortly.

I got to talk to a friend in recovery today.  I talked alot about work related subjects of interest.  It was a helpful conversation to me because I seemed to recover a sense of professional capability that I seemed to have lost.  Afterward however I thought about how little I had to say about recovery and the spiritual life.  It was as if I lost some motivation or sense of being a recovered addict.

I had a moment of exhiliration this morning when I took a detour while on an errand.  I went to the top of a hill where a new road was built.  It is poised on the edge of plateau where a fault line causes a geographic uplift.  I viewed a panoramic vista of my region of the county that I hadn't ever seen before which is in a location that I have passed near for years.

This afternoon I spent some quality time practicing catching and throwing with my autistic son.  I realized that I needed to rehearse receiving the ball at first base and give him a chance to play that position this spring.  He still has problems with his coordination but also may just need to be motivated to execute.

I regretted spending too much money on dinner last night.
I regretted spending too much money on groceries today.
My wife and I argued once over some trivial matter but we cut it out and didn't stay sore.
I should have tried to go to a meeting today.

This evening I watched celebrity rehab. Watching addicts struggling in early recovery and watching addicts with some clean time talk to them really rejuvinated my passion for recovery.

Thanks be to God.

Today was the first day back to school.  It was painful to wake up at the early time but we did better than I expected and made it to school early. My daughter was eager to go back and see her friends and teacher but at the drop off she expressed some separation anxiety.  I was awkward handling it but her ex teacher stepped in and took care of it.  I need to plan a strategy.

I seemed to regain my meditation ability today.  That is, I regained my control of mental focus.  I thought of the mind as a corridor, at the end is God, the light.  Along the walls are doorways.  Some doors are opened some are closed.  Some should be opened, some should be closed.  Some have the doorways broken off, but there is a door of spiritual force closing the doorway.  The doors that should be opened are the affairs in my life.  I must move back and forth and attend to them at the appropriate times.  I must glance in them and sometimes enter into them partially to plan accordingly.   But they all beckon me, and sometimes this becomes a din of voices sending rushing back and forth in the corridor fretting over my plans.  This can assume a frantic pace.  I can get crazy and plan incessantly and excessively.

In meditation I focus on the light at the end of the hall and gently close all the doors.  If I lose focus I begin to hear the voices from behind the doors clamoring for my attention.  Sometimes the forces within the doors throw them open and chatter incessantly until I draw power from the light to close them again.  I may go back and forth like this until I achieve focus.

When I spend appropriate time here I draw enough strength from the light to control my attention span.  Then I can plan on goals of virtue in all my activity for the day.  In this way I carry a vision of God's will into all my activities.

This also got me thinking about the doorways that must stay shut.  In most of those doorways are a variety of spiritually taxing pursuits like politics, celebrity gossip, selfish pursuits, etc.  In some are vices like resentments, personal injunctions, self pity, self centered thinking, etc.  In one of those doorways there are two hookers and an eight ball.

This morning my wife informed me that our dog was missing.  I was a little upset by this but I started thinking about dog psychology which eased my worries.  I thought about how she was probably wandering around a small radius in our neighborhood.  I noticed some evidence of digging in the ground outside the front window and envisioned her finding her way back in the middle of the night only to be locked out and then wandering away again.  I drove around after dropping the kids off but didn't see any sign of her.  Later in the morning I set out to look for her again.  When I walked out the door I found dig marks that I didn't see before.  On a hunch I went in the direction of our walks to the park.  At the park I saw two men staring in the same direction across the busy thoroughfare as if they might have just seen a stray, aimless dog almost get hit crossing the road.  I went passed the intersection but turned into the neighborhood in the direction the men were looking and doubled back to where she would have entered.  I circled around a couple of blocks and found wandering aimlessly in a yard.

I brought our dog home safely.
I helped do kid drop offs and pick ups today.
This evening I got to play Wii games.
I got to take my middle son to buy shoes tonight, it was quality one-on-one time.

Thanks be to God for all the good things He did for me today.

This Monday I was very late waking up.  On Sunday night I had a hard time getting to sleep and then woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep.  But when I did get up, I resolved to set it behind me and make the most out of the day.  I did a lot of yard work and ended up with a great sense of productivity for the day.

In the evening I went to my first KOFC council meeting.  It had a strange feel for me.  I felt out of place by age and social status.  I wasn't really that out of place but I felt that way.  The guys there were very friendly so I know it was just me.  I also thought the rituals were awkward, but I could get used to them.  I thought about how important this is for my family.  I thought about how this is the way that I need to get involved in a family appropriate organization at my church.

Thanks be to God.

Today was a very busy day.  We went to mass in the morning and then a Christmas Party in the afternoon.  In the evening I went to a 12 step meeting.

I had an interesting dilemma for the past 3 mornings in that I have struggled to get through meditation.  It seems to be a congruence with the fact that I said in a meeting the other night that I felt like and expert at meditation and prayer.  This has troubled me greatly because it just doesn't seem right but I was trying to make a point.  I was trying to convey the message that we don't have to stay stuck. That we don't have to settle for mediocrity in our spiritual practices.  That we should set a goal to improve in understanding and effectiveness.  Nevertheless, I still felt that I could have said it a different way.

I heard a very good talk by Fr. Barron this morning.  He talked about a different view of Christ the King and the spiritual realm.  What struck me in particular was his view of the angels as extra dimensional beings that would appear very imposing and invoke fear.  That angels were not the docile tame creatures that they are typically portrayed as.

This evening when I arrived at the meeting I realized that it was city wide birthday night.  I was able to be the one to initiate set up of the room.  But then I really didn't want to stay there.  I dreaded the thought of that type of meeting with an endless list of speeches.  But as the crowd gathered I became motivated by the old friends that I had not seen in a long time and the new faces that I had never seen.  I decided to stay for one speaker and kept that going one speaker at a time. There were several points where I had to turn to God to free me from my critical nature.  Mid way through the meeting God removed my apathy and restored my enthusiasm and gratitude.  I truly enjoyed being a part of the recovery community.

I had few thoughts to jot down tonight:

Complete Psychic Change - profound and fundamental rehabilitation of the guiding forces, instinctual drives, and motivational values 

Strategy - retool the conscience, replace the values, revive the spirit

Thanks be to God for this day.

This New Years Day I felt like I had a hangover.  I forced myself out of bed at a reasonable time, given how late we were up, so that I could keep the kids close to their proper schedule.  I was grateful that I was just tired and wasn't suffering the effects of alcohol or other substances.

I also felt spiritually flat at some level this day.  I felt as if my faith was depleted somehow.

We had a good day doing yard work and practicing baseball.  But at the end of the day I was very tired and didn't go to a meeting.

I was grateful that I did an evening review 324 out of 365 days last year.

Thanks be to God for the beginning of another great new year.