Sunday

This little area in the parking lot at my church was utterly destroyed by hail a few years ago.  There were trees here, they got bashed into twigs, and later cut down.   It’s been replanted and is lovely, and will be lovelier in a few years when the plants are mature.  There’s a little bench, where I sat for a while after Mass today, after all the mad rush in the parking lot was over.

Do you know that what I find valuable about blogging is pouring out my guts?  I may write about taking offense, or being jealous, or being angry.  Of course, I know that is not the proper disposition, and I will pray and work towards being the person God wants me to be.  It always cracks me up when people come by and comment on what kind of attitude I should have, or what I could do better.   Or better yet, tell me that they don’t bother ever getting angry, getting their feathers ruffled, or being upset.  I guess they immediately process straight into serenity.

I count my blessings that I no longer weep and pound on the floor in desperation.  I am so grateful that I haven’t punched a hole in a wall in probably 20 years (note that this excludes some years of sobriety).   I haven’t given anyone “a piece of my mind” for a very long time, very long, maybe 10 or 20 years.  There is not one person on the face of this earth that I couldn’t talk to right now.  Without even changing my clothes or cleaning the house.  This is what I count as miraculous progress.  

I am not quite at perfection yet (as if I will ever be), but I am still working on it.  That is why some people like me (some even love me) and some don’t.  I am nothing if not real.  Someone told me very long ago that “everybody’s friend is nobody’s friend.”  I really didn’t get it at the time, but I do now.

I am grateful it is Sunday and I will get that nap I was talking about yesterday.  My daughter called just as I put my head down yesterday and asked if I would like to go shopping with her.   When my grown children ask me to do something I generally say “yes.”  It is such a blessing to have these wonderful people in my life.  And I can sleep today.

I went to the night watch gathering last night and ended up taking a phone call from a woman who was quite drunk and looking for a detox.  I gave her the number of one, and she said she didn’t like that one.  I gave her the number of another, and she hung up on me.  She called back 4 times, and probably more after I left.  I let someone else take the other calls because I have no idea about detox, I never went.  Some of my friends could tell you about every detox in town, and they fielded the return calls.  I was relived to see that they did or said nothing different than I did.  I felt kind of funny about referring someone to detox.  But the book says that some people need to get medical help to get off the booze.  Detoxing off of alcohol can actually kill a person, and it sounded like this woman may know that she needs serious medical help.

I am not dreading work tomorrow.  I developed a data entry form for my divisions to submit their data to me.  Instead of 42 pages of meaningless dribble, I now have one line, for one month, for each measure.  Numbers that I could just plug into the graphs I have already made.  I was done with my work on Friday afternoon, where a rough draft isn’t even due until Monday afternoon.  When I told my boss, she almost cried.  Because she saw me crying over this last month, and sensed that I was crying about it (not in front of her) for the last four months.

What a beautiful day I get to be sober in!  I hope you all are having wonderful days too.

“Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’  The Sprit himself bears witness with our sprit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God….”  Romans 8:15-17