Here is another introductory piece in hopes of comprising a collection of tales, talks and walks of life between those borders of home & homeless, going & coming, lost and found.
Wading in these waters you’re bound to get a little wet. It is from this current that I want us to gaze. The old question of who consoles the counselor, who pastors the pastor and who heals the doctor deserves more than a cursory glance. An innocent by- stander can simply turn away from the yellow tape disaster scene while those frantically involved are intimately torn between flight and fright. Those of us treading in the waves of each other’s heavy seas should to prepared for both its beauty and force of when its comes a’ crashing.
Bad advice is one thing, no advice is another. The best advice is entering into the other’s life with full compassion and understanding. However, this commitment takes vulnerability and the willingness of walking head-on into the snarled and twisted carnage of the others lives.
We all carry round parts of each other, whether we are cognizant or the fact of not. The size of our suitcases and bags display how well we process our inter-being with the rest of our world. When these bags start tripping us up, where do we unload all this stuff?
The brilliancy of AA is its simple ingredients of transparent honesty within yourself and the strength of committed community. Whether we are the ones carrying the load or the one clearing space/time to place all the extra baggage, we will need both honesty and group strength. Pioneers will quickly find themselves white knuckled behind bars or belly up at the bar.
It is through these conversations that expose just how much I yearn for a risk-free, safe, routine life divinely beamed down through that huge satellite of love & order. All this is scattered the moment I enter the life of one less fortunate. Before quickly trying to gather the shards of my once glass-clean existence, I’m forced to hold our broken edges of life up to the light. All these fractured, twisted, desperate tales beg an answer or some solace. That is when letting go of your shattered pieces of life and embracing the other, as a work in progress-happens. Entering the stories of others you must let go of the security of your own life, walking straight through that white picket fence and know that that divine satellite beams love, compassion and companionship to all; step one.
