words of John Wesley:
“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”
the POWER of GOOD
Can we still Be Kind
My friend, Carol in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, mentioned an occurrence of signs popping up on the streets of her town which simply urge “BE KIND”.
My friend, Jim, lamented that people, i.e., the world, are so UNKIND. Indeed, Jim’s assessment is backed by news headlines and social/political commentary on the media outlets.
Another friend confided in me a few months ago that she and her boyfriend are taking their relationship to the next level. (Hope they are taking an elevator. Folks our age can’t be wasting time). She also commented that she will always remember me as a gentle, KIND man. Coward’s way of saying, “You are no longer in contention for my man of the year award.”
Gentle?? I have no choice. I am old and fragile; I have to be gentle.
Kind? That’s a matter of definition and opinion. We should talk about it, shouldn’t we?
Nothing defines ‘kind’ better than a passage from 1 Corinthians, chapter 13. I’m sure you know it well.
Verses 4-8 tell us that kindness is love:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
Considering the events in Buffalo and Uvalde, is it time to cast aside love and kindness, shut off our media devices to keep the images of terror and hatred outside our realm of reality hoping to protect ourselves from the unimaginable pain and horror? Should we hide away behind closed doors in fear and distrust, turn off that part of us that thrives on love and patience, kindness and truth?
We would like to think, “Yes, I can do that.”
But we deceive ourselves if we try to do that. That is not whom we were designed to be.
As children of a magnanimous God, we have been created to also be magnanimous, to be generous and noble, not petty in conduct or in thought. We have been blessed with the courage to face darkness and ugliness and have been given the tools to confront the wrongs of our society whether that which is wrong is social injustice, poverty or murder of children. We have been saved from our own personal hells, our personal treks through darkness.
I was given a new life, a restoration, a reclamation when I said, “My name is Larry, I am an alcoholic.”
And it was all by grace, an unmerited and undeserved gift of a power greater than myself which even today I cannot define or understand. That’s how it is supposed to be – a mystery which I trust will be revealed when I leave this physical plane of existence.
But there is a price to pay for this gift. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 names this price. This is what God expects of me when times are tough, when minds are frazzled, when hatred wants to take center stage, when human understanding fails.
We can have our temper tantrums, we can scream at the trees, we can swear revenge. But in the end, we will resume our civic duties to turn the tide on violence and hatred and we will return to the love and kindness that floods the darkness with light.
That’s God’s way and that’s the path of sober living.
SOBER TODAY? GIVE YOURSELF AND YOUR HIGHER POWER A HAND.
teacher Marion
When I was in 5th grade at Leck Kill Elementary School, my teacher was Marion, my grandmother’s sister-in-law. Much to my amazement during one of her classes, Marion declared in response to a classmate’s answer to a question, “I’m from Missouri, I don’t believe that. Prove it!”
I was astonished because, as far as I could determine at that young age, all my relatives were native born Pennsylvanians, all of German heritage. Troubled for the rest of the day I made Marion the primary topic of discussion at the supper table with my family.
“Why no, Marion is from Trevorton (a nearby town), ” responded my mother and grandmother, “why would she say that?”
When confronted by her lie, Marion laughed while explaining the meaning of Missouri, the ‘show me state.’ Lesson to be learned was this: don’t believe anything alleged, whispered, declared as truth or seen without ample proof. And even then, ask questions.
Applying this to my recovery, to my commitment to sober living and to the entirety of my faith walk, I would like to believe that when I walked into the rooms of my first AA meeting, listened to the people tell their stories, and wished for the sobriety which they had, I thought, “Yes, this is for me, this is what I want, this is something I can do.”
But that would be a lie. I was a scared drunk simply wanting relief from a life which had put me on the doorstep of suicide. I did not know what I wanted. I was 34 years old feeling like an old man with nothing to live for. And I certainly did not believe that I could do what these sober alcoholics had done…..5, 10, 15 years of sobriety and they had survived without the crutch of alcohol which had carried me for so many years.
“Lord, I can’t do this,” I cried out when I left the meeting and returned home.
“Yes, you can, and here is how you will do it. Surrender your life to me and turn it over to my care.”
“But, Lord, you don’t know. The things I have done, the people I have hurt, the heartaches I have caused those who love me. You just don’t know.”
“I do know. And even so, I never stopped loving you. You are one of my Father’s children. Walk with me. ‘One day at a time’, ‘easy does it’, ‘let go and let God’…..it’s all there in the meeting rooms.”
Yes, those damned placards on the walls attempting to encourage me. Many nights, I sat quietly listening to others share their stories staring at the sayings on the walls while continuing to think, “Lord, I can’t do this.”
Those nights turned into years until finally through faith in a Higher Power, I realized that “Lord, I can’t” turned into “Lord, by your grace, I will.”
In a nutshell that’s my story and it can be yours also. There are no secrets to sobriety. Walk by faith as long as necessary until you can say, “Yes Lord, I will.”
And you are asking, “Larry, what does teacher Marion have to do with this story?”
Show me; prove it; I don’t believe it. Some of us are sicker than others and some of us need to live by faith until we can see clearly the promises of sobriety.
2 Corinthians 5:7 “We live by faith not by sight.”
lpb quest - the twilight dance 