Golden Flames from the Center of My Universe

So very tired, life does show up, and sticks around, and tells me lies. So very tired, when I see those with so many years, unhappy, living their wildest dream. Not realizing they have no clue what they say. So me the way, tell me what happened yesterday, how you hurt yourself, to see if you could still feel. What did you do about it? There had to be more than 12 simple steps, because in those steps, one recovers, but I can’t in them find how to start over, and learn to live.

I believed if I lost everything, I was free to do anything. It’s strange, in being clean, my world has fallen apart. I’m not living life behind my wildest dreams. I’m told I have a choice, that I can make my day whatever I choose. In some ways, for a while Captain Jack did that for me, he took me to that special Island, but it truthfully was a ride to nowhere. So what now, as I run out of reasons I find value in living? What now, my six sense has returned, one that baffles and scares me and can’t talk about, because nobody believes me.

 I ask one thing, before you give advice, walk yourself through it, if you haven’t already, and then damn it, why are you giving advice. I need to know, does it get better? Really? The only guarantee is if I still with it, I will never have to be as sick again. It tells me to reach out, yet what good am I If I can’t find it in me to love myself. Where do I look? I’m willing, I’m teachable, I’m desperate, I have clean time, am I in exactly the right place I should be, well guess what, “IT FUCKEN SUCKS.” I could end it all tonight, and not give a second thought. The shrink isn’t working, the Legal system is punishing me. I have more attorneys now then I had when I was using. My life sucks more, now that I’m clean. I’m isolated thousands of miles from home, from my support, my love, and my friends. I’m isolated on a desert Island, for some reason, not making friends, something I’ve never had a problem doing, and it’s been well over a year? What the hell happened, Get sober and be more miserable then when using is what this madness is telling me.

Enough, off my soap box, I so need a hero … and I so need to be doing what God “I think,” is calling me to do. I am no longer banging on the doors that were closed, yet there are no doors opened, I’m wandering around in the desert. As God has yet to see he has taken me out of Egypt, yet he’s not taken the Egyptian out of me. Then only can I enter Canaan.

I don’t know how, every morning, I put on the big boy pants, I go to a dangerous job, with a team of miserable people. I’m verbally abused, by a member of AA, who I can only assume needs a  fucken drink, because after 20 years if I’m that damned miserable, you can take this program, hell all 12 step programs, and God Bless you if they work for you. If I’m that miserable, I’m not sure I’ll mind dying dirty. I’ve been divorced,  now being sued by the same woman for more, been to Jail (Still trying to figure that one out) for doing anything but told “The Right Thing”, and a  year of near total isolation. Yet here I still am, working a program, doing the best I can, and the shit just piles on.

Sorry, I needed an avenue to vent, a place to put words, a moment of interruption,
 

‘What have I become

My sweetest friend

Everyone I know goes away

In the end

And you could have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt

 

I wear this crown of thorns

Upon my liar's chair

Full of broken thoughts

I cannot repair

Beneath the stains of time

The feelings disappear

You are someone else

I am still right here

 

What have I become

My sweetest friend

Everyone I know goes away

In the end

And you could have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt

 

If I could start again

A million miles away

I would keep myself

I would find a way”  -Nine Inch Nails” and one of the last covers ever by “Johnny Cash.”

LOST: Have You Seen Me?

Reward Offered!

Looking for that person I used to call me. If you happen to see me, I'm white 5'7 middle aged, but look older than I really am. Not sure where I was last seen, but somewhere I got away. I'm really missing me, so if you happen to come across me, returning me would be so appreciated. I've looked everywhere, even in the mirror, but I'm not there, just the empty mirror and nothing else but the wall behind, not the person I used to be.

What is Love anyway?

The ponder of the day was, "What is Love, Anyway?" I ask this question, because truth be known, If I knew anything about Love, or what it actually means, I wouldn't have had the arms lengths list of relationships gone bad over this life time.

People say it all the time "I love You", but what does that mean? What does Love look like? We learn by example, from the time we are born, until the day we die, we all should be learning something.

I do believe there are many, who out of stubborn, self-centered, selfishness, close their minds. They are content in what they believe to be the only truth and refuse in ideas, or even that they might be wrong. But this blog is my blog, and thus the freedom to ask and ponder whatever I want, and if anyone actually reads it, that's fine with me. If however, no a single soul, takes the time to read what I've written here, it matters to me, not one bit. What I write is for me, its my outlet, the way I express myself, explore who I am, and occasionally, I'm blessed with someone contributing an idea. Mostly this blog is about growing up, and as it's called, putting big boy pants on; learning how to live.

I asked a dozen different people, what is love, and I got similar, yet somewhat different answers, nothing unexpected. I think it was my reply, in response to their answer, that left ones scratching their head. "Love, drawing from the experience of my past is:

• Painful
• Suffering
• Selfish
• Self Centered
• Needy
• Fear In General
• Self security
• Reassurance
• Conditional
• Lonely
• Shallow
• Over used
• Over Rated
• Manipulating
• Untrustworthy

With the exception of less than a handful of people and God, I've yet to hear the words "I love you" and find any trust in those words whatsoever. Again, were going back to, the experiences of my past.

It is so frustrating, because I have this feeling, that I think is Love, at least that's what I was told it was, but how can I know that, make the connection? From a young age, Beatings followed in the morning of, it will never happen again, "I love you." I Love you, I will marry you, until death do we part, and I bought into it. I buy into it because I want to believe. Because If what I feel for other is in fact love, I've tried to get rid of it, stuffing it into the bottom of every bottle, and yet, it was still there.
Ever drink with someone, and somewhere around 3am, they say "I love you Man?"

So If I'm going to break the cycle of bad relationships, setting my expectations and being hurt, How can I spot the real McCoy. Well first I've found there are different kinds of love. Id never given it too much thought, but there is, and so I cant lump every "I Love You" into the same group, it would be unfair and I'd be setting myself up for yet more disappointment.

Lets start with, at least in my opinion, Love cannot involve abuse, physical or emotional. One cannot tell me "I love you" and abuse me, and have me ever to believe again, its love. "You made me do it, because I love you." That's total crap. Abuse me and that's where I'll choose to draw the line today. We are not perfect, there is room for forgiveness, but a short pattern of continued abuse, and I'm all done. No matter of neediness, or fears of Abandonment. It is not worth it, I'll suck it up, feel the pain, suffer and cry, Shake my fist at the sky, what ever it takes, but I'm done. It has to be this way, or I wont break the cycle.

What I have learned is, as mentioned above there are different kinds of Love:

Eros - is the physical, sensual love between a husband and wife.

Storge - is family love, the bond among mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.

Philia - means close friendship or brotherly love in Greek. It is one of the four types of love in the Bible.
Agape - is selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love, the highest of the four types of love in the Bible

The picture is starting to come into focus, it makes more sense now, there are different kinds of love. Though I think I could add the love, a word people miss use, or throw around, either because they want something, think its the thing to say or don't know any better. Love in my opinion, should only be used when a person means it. Now that we know the different kinds of love, how can I find what this thing called Love really is? It was then, that it occurred to me, the best description, that exists, doesn't appear in the dictionary, from the words of other men, but from God himself, through the teachings of Paul. Today, again yet another spiritual awakening for me.

First and foremost, "GOD IS LOVE", explained in the book of 1 John 4:8, I think the only entity capable of in Greek Agape. I'm not capable nor deserving of this kind of love, though only through Grace does God love us this much. I cannot comprehend this kind of love, I don't even know how to get my head around it. Nor will I, because this comes from the maker of all. I look into the night sky, and try to understand infinite, in this small finite mine, and I realize, I'm not going to even try to figure out the kind of Enormous, immeasurable love God has for all of us.

But I wanted more, I needed to see what it looked like, so I could model it. I could model this through the teachings of Christ. No, actually I cant, because he teaches "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." If I did that, I would get nowhere, even take the chance they may never speak to me again. Because if I treated them the way I feel about myself, It would be all the things I listed above, that I often apply to myself in what I were to deliver. This is about putting on big boy pants though, so I have to have a clear model of what love looks like, smells like, something I'm as a mere mortal, broken human can attempt to follow. It was then I remembered, (Back to Scripture)

1 Cor. 13:1-7

 

13 If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

This, summed up everything, It answered all the questions, it speaks to the loose use of the word, and then explains what it really means.

What a wonderful, Spiritual Awaking day.

Thank You Lord, for another day, in your creation. If today is my last, I thank you for being so beautiful, Loving, Wonderful and Glorious. That you, the God who gives and takes away, thank you for today. If I should open my eyes tomorrow, I shall praise and thank you, for I deserve nothing you provide. I shall look to the daily miracles, you perform. (I will be clear to you the reader, the sun coming up every day, is natural, to me, a miracle is Gods intervention into the natural world, and is of Super Natural origin, but it happens every day, its all around me. It's all around you. Today is a gift. Tomorrow, belongs to him.

Today I put on perhaps just training pants, but its a start, Just for Today.

Learning To Love You

Four decades, and I'm just now, starting to like me. Its been a lifetime of needing to have the acceptance of others, for them to like me. All of this at the expense of having to be someone or do things that are not of the person I am.

The answer is so simple, yet it's taken so much to understand just a few philosophies. The top :

"It's none of my business what other people think of me"

"Its none of my business what or how another person is running their life, as long as it's not harming someone else, and even in that case, unless it's a loved one that's being hurt, not my concern"Get

"I had better slow my role" Which means, slow the fuck down. I make a mess of things in the vain attempt to do it all at once. It can wait, not procrastination but patients

"There is a God, and it's not me"

"Getting high makes me feel better, because nothing matters, but it doesn't fix a thing, It's still there when I come down, all the while the drug destroys me. Oh, and those little problems, that don't go away, by the time I come down, they have worked up into a Giant Shit Storm, and the answer, get high again ...

 Its a shitty job, but its a job! Its a job 1/2 the world would give their right hand to have and in even being blessed with it, I curse the blessing

There are good people in the world. Not everyone is out to screw me over. I bring it upon myself, in seeking out people who are as screwed up as, or worse, for the most part, to make me feel better about myself. No wonder it seems like everyone in the world is out to get me, I invited them.

Stop and think, "What is my part in this" just about every bad thing that's ever happened, I played a part. There might be a clue in there somewhere, of what NOT to do next time.

I can say No! If I believe that its none of my business what other people think of me, then what's the issue here. It's my responsibility, God gave me a brain, and that voice in my head that says, NO say NO.

Miracles are all around me, they happen every day, and I take them for granted, because of my feeling I deserve it. The truth is I'm not entitled to anything. All I have to look up at the sky on a cloudless dark night, look off into the endless universe and realize, I'm a tiny speck and not a thing revolves around me. Look for the blessings. Find the miracles, they are there if you look, right under my nose. I learned to call it luck. I called it, deserve.

I need to have a dream, and then do something in trying to obtain it, otherwise its not a dream at all, its just talk.

Learn to spot, and Call Myself on MY OWN BULLSHIT! No need to wait for others to notice.

I DONT NEED ANYONE TO BE OK! I AM OK, I am what I make it. The only need is to be there for others, up and until the point, its apparent, they should be helping themselves, at that point, their using me. and that's when, No More again, applies.

Nobody ever deserves or should allow themselves to be abused or used  by others.

I'm not perfect, but I'm earnestly trying, in treating people the way I want to be treated.

Pattern of bad relationships and abuse, well again, what is my part in it, uh Pete did you ever think that those are the people you attracted? Stop already.

I've got someone wonderful in my life, stop looking for the flaws, the catch, the hidden agenda. Could it be there there is a right person, one who is not going to treat me like a welcome matt. Stop trying to chase her away. You chased all the bad ones, and now you don't know what to do when you find the one that doesn't need chasing, so you try and chase them away, what's my part in that? Have a just a little faith, your not chasing, they are running, she see's things in me, that I've not yet, seen in myself. She believes in me, where I have yet to even begun to see. Someone believes in me and is willing to risk it all, I mean really, there is something much larger than myself directing the show.

Its ok that good things happen, important I recognize them, and call them what they are, blessings. Bad things happen, what was my part and what can I learn?

There are some roads you go down alone. It's ok, because if your ok with you, then you have good company.

I'm not as messed up as I allowed people to convince me I was, rather the opposite, and I'm free to be me.

I don't have to keep running, with acceptance, comes peace.

Home is where I say it is

Im not chasing loved ones, family and friends, they know where I am, the phone goes both ways, the road goes both ways, its me, not them with the issues of abandonment. Im ri. ght here, and my door is always open, come see me. If you don't, well then call, and if not, why am I all banged up about a person that has no time for me in the first place.

If Im ok with Me, and that awesome powerful creator of everything is at the wheel, why cant I kick back and slow my role. Your right Beanie, slow my role ... Its meaning keeps right on growing.

Today, the best friends I have, the ones with the qualities I want and need, have walked that road, the one that brings you to the brink and back, because obviously, they have been there.

Its my job today, to be available to those you reach out in earnest, but step away from those who are not ready. Those who are not ready Pete, they are not ready and its not your job to make them ready, only to be there when they are.

Let go of those people in your past that don't matter, and hold dearly to those who along with you, on the journey, those who are earnestly seeking. Those who are not ready, I'll only enable to stay down in that hole.

learn ... NO DO listen to that voice in your head, listen and obey, discerning the spirit is a gift you have Pete. You can see in colors other cannot, use them. Use your "Sixth Sense" the nobody believes you have, because you gave all your attention to selfishly wanting everyone to like  you, you know its there, you know how to use it, stop ignoring it and use it. It will guide you, call it the Holy Spirit, because you know it is.

STOP PEOPLE PLEASING STOP PEOPLE PLEASING, you know the difference now between being a decent human, and being a loving kind, generous person and PEOPLE PLEASING, STOP IT! Its really not so hard, when your ok with you.

It's becoming so clear, it all, each and everyone, comes back to being ok with me ..... it all comes down to being ok with who I am, and learning to love the good things about me, and the willingness to earnestly work on those things that need change.

I've got a whole new life ahead of me, and it starts today, and involves only today, because its what I have. I cannot change anyone but myself, so stop giving the great advise. Actions speak louder than words.

If you say your going to do something, then you had better darn well do it, or have an honest answer as to why things didn't go the way you promised.

The saying, your not unique, is right in some ways, but not being unique, doesn't mean I'm not special.

Moonless Night in November

It's a beautiful moonless night; stars in all their glory. A hot fire keeps the chill off. There isn't another soul on the south jetty tonight. Just me god and the crickets. Baked potato on the coals and reading A Christmas Carol. Most have only seen the movie, but the book and original illustrations, the work of brilliance. I'm all alone tonight, yet nit the least bit lonely.

Christmas Boat Parade By Surprise

Saturday afternoon I went down to the marina to see the annual boat parade. I got there early, thinking parking would be a mess. I got a good spot, abeit on the wrong side of the marina. I walked down to the main pavillion, and stood.

I played with my Iphone, listening to music, twittering, those things I do when there isn't much else to do. The man behind me tapped my shoulder gently,

"Is this the line to get on the boat," he asked?

I turned, paused and said,

"I don't know, Im just hear to watch the boat parade."

Turning back, I realized there were twenty or so people in front of me, in a line. I was in a line, for what I had no idea. I decided to hold my ground and see what happened.

Fifteen minutes later, two large boats pulled up. One named the "Warf Cat", a 50 person fishing charter boat. Behind her was "The Island Queen", a former car ferry converted also to a charter fishing boat. The line began to move forward.

A woman handed me a red "Ticket" as the crowd pressed forward. A few feet beyond a man took my red ticket and ushered me onboard.

"I'm going to be in a parade," I thought, "how wonderful this is!"

I was handed a Christmas Carol book. I made my way to the top deck. The next 1 1/2 hours we sang carols. We waved to people on the shore. I was so excited.

What a wonderful Saturday, Thank You God for getting me in the spirit of Christmas.

There are those who are in the parade,

Those who watch the parade,

Those who ask, "There was a parade?"

and now,

"Wholey Cow, I'm in a parade"

So Small

The fire laps at my feet. I push back into the chair and tilt my head skyward. I feel so very small, in this tiny spot, gazing into the endless expanse of Gods glory. How smug are we to think that we have it all figured out; and yet not even scratched the surface of what was, is and will be.


"Here is where the land slips out under, where ocean meets sky and inky darkness swallows. The surf pounds sand into submission, the planets late night exhibition. A star splashed celestial sphere grows in glow, the tide slips out from high to low." - PAS

No Man Is and Island

The island is quiet tonight, summer tourists long gone. A cool breeze sneaks through this light coat. Dolphins ply the bay. A perfect moon hangs above the endless Gulf at the end of this fall day. 

I once dreamed of living on an Island, and now I do. Careful for what you ask, because you might just get it. An Island can be a very lonely place. It's getting harder to stay every day.

I will remember the cast of characters that I will leave behind, for a start, here are two.

Edward - Lives in a tent, tucked away in the bushes by design. He believes he is a warlock. His "God Job," is to kill outlaw bikers in their dream. He speaks of Gods and Goddesses, spell casting in the wee hours of the night. He rambles colorful words painted on a jet black future. He has nothing, but at least he is free.

Robert - He is haunted by the demon of inward obsession and what other people think. He full of advice, yet angers at a correction. Institutionalized in a simple yet never ending maze of self help. I never know if I'll run into the happy Robert of he who is full of rage.

I am though the biggest character of all, yet I doubt many could describe. I let very few inside.

I offer up Gratitude to the only one who never disappoints, I'll lean over and turn out the light.

Good Night.

Hurry Up and Wait

Today's Message "To be continued" :-/

Blogging from on hi

Just thought it would be neat to blog from 40,000 feet! That's over 7 miles high, and it's -67f outside my window. Not that I've thought of opening it. I'm over the Gulf of Mexico south of Grand Isle LA and down below, I can see only inky dark and hundreds of oil platforms.