Beside Restful Waters

“We can put away that negligence.”

Ojibwe grandmother

She was speaking of our negligence of our water resources. This Ojibwe grandmother took note of her ancestral teachings about water being our source of life. She walked the St. Lawrence seaway and around each of the great lakes, listening, talking to Great Spirit, and sharing her passion for our responsibilities to care for each other – we humans, animals, plants, wind, water, fire, and mother earth. We care for each other or we die. This is just a simple fact. Do we neglect this fact?

Do we neglect these facts of life?

Those of us thriving in sobriety know too well the impact of our negligence. We typically call it denial.

We have denied our addictive nature.

We have denied the impact of our addiction on family.

We have denied the impact of our addiction on friends, employers, ……

We have denied the impact of our addiction on our fearfully and wonderfully created selves.

In sobriety, we become attracted to a new way of life, usually from our knees as we are threatened with or experience loss of family, jobs, freedoms, ………

We enter a transformation of our very beings. We see the scars of those who have walked a similar path, with similar pains, with similar denial, but with a new sense of freedom, hope, and life. In these scarred stories, we begin to appreciate a ‘Power Greater Than Ourselves’. Some call this power God. Others call this Power by another name. Yet we all agree to our mutual need to reach beyond ourselves to find this Power.

“…… because nothing stays the same once we have found the God within….”

Hmmmmmmm?

I see the “Power Greater than Myself” in others. This experience of looking outside of myself begins to fill my emptiness within.

Our mystery continues.

My experience of YOUR Divinity lights the interior of MY being and WE uncover the mystery of OUR experience, strength and hope.

The life of negligence and emptiness begins to fill with our mindfulness. WE, all of creation, become the presence of our Great Mystery. We observe the greatness of the mystery in the simplicity of a breath, a sip, a breeze, a warmth. It becomes difficult to take anything for granted.

Yes, we find rest in the midst of our shared scars. We find comfort on the trail of tears that we now follow. We find ease and stability in the moments of silence.

We know we are in a good place …………. together.

Welcome all who labor.

Thank you.

Namaste’