A Timely Reminder

"If you spend your life waiting on the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine."
~ Morris West


I woke early this morning in the grips of nightmare backwash and wasted over thirty minutes trying to go back to sleep. I finally gave up, got up and read. I read Just For Today, but I didn't get much out of it other than the reminder that it's been a while since I've made a meeting. My mind struggled with trying to think through the aftereffects of an all too real feeling dream the way a fly struggles to fly from oil. It failed. I couldn't think. Yet I read on.

I read Daily Reflections. No great relief or inspiration came. I read Twenty-Four Hours A Day and thought I'm still trying to ground myself to this reality and feel like what I woke from was a dream so I doubt I'd be of much service at the moment. I thought, "I'm wasting my time. I'll just have to read all of this again later, if I'm going to get anything out of them today." Yet I read on.

I read As Bill Sees It, then Walk In Dry Places (at which point I only remember thinking that my throat felt quite dry), and then Keep It Simple. I thought I should make sure to reread that one, as it appeared to have potential to inspire some thought once my brain began working again. Maybe I needed caffeine? No, I thought. My thoughts felt as though they were being strained through cold molasses, but I didn't want to start making coffee just yet. I continued to read.

I enjoyed Each Day A New Beginning as I often do (I don't care if the subtitle says it's a meditation for women - I have found some universally good stuff in that one - look for the similarities, not the differences), but it did nothing to pull me from the funk I felt. Or maybe it did. For a brief moment I paused from feeling frustration at being stuck in mental low gear and felt grateful for my wife lying beside me, the "someone who brings out the colors of life and whose very presence offers tranquility and contentment, enriches my being and makes me grateful for the opportunity to share," as Kathleen Tierney Crilly put it. Upon reflection, that deviation from self-focused thought may have prepared me to receive what was to come, but I assure my readers that I was by no means aware of the possibility as I continued on with my reading journey to my Big Book. My brain still was not functioning on a high enough level for me to do any self-diagnostics. To be honest, I don't even remember reading Twelve Steps And Twelve Traditions, though I know I did.

Finally, I arrived at my daily dose of quotes. This is quite often my favorite part of the day. A single profound sentence or two is often more what I need as a jumping off point than a paragraph or more. Three quotes in I read the Morris West cited at the start of this rambling. The sentence broke through my fog, a lighthouse beacon guiding me safely to more peaceful shores. I went on a read the rest of the quotes for the day, Father Leo's Daily Meditation, Daily Inspiration and some scriptures from the Bible, but my thoughts kept returning to that simple truth about waiting on the storm.

I know that I've written way too much to preface this, but rather than edit, I will simply remind the reader of what the West quote. "If you spend your life waiting on the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine." How simple, yet how true! I unwound my body from bed, snap, crackled and popped my way into some clothes, and went outside to brace the damp, cold wind for a smoke. As I stood on the porch mulling over the statement, I began to feel grateful that once again, as so often occurs, somewhere in all the reading I do to being my day was exactly what I needed at that moment.

I believe that my nightmare came from the tension that has been building within me about something I might, I repeat might, have to deal with sometime in the next couple of weeks. My magic magnifying mind at work again projecting the possible though improbable. Worry and fear have entered my mind through a small portal created by anger and resentment left undealt with. I felt ashamed for a second that I had allowed this resentment to grow and fester, but I quickly chose instead to be grateful that I now realized the problem and the solution. I finished my cigarette, returned to bed, cuddled up next to my warm wife grateful she didn't push my cold body away, and went back to sleep for a little while.

It's amazing how the peace that comes from understanding can provide the ability to rest. I received no new revelation. I instead discovered a timely reminder of truth I already know. Worry is a waste of my time. I have reached a point where I should not be fighting anything or anyone, and I desperately needed the reminder that to gear up for a fight mentally, even if I avoid it in reality, is just as damaging, maybe more so, than walking into a situation swinging. I've been in enough physical fights to know that they start fast and don't last long. It's the mental fight before and after that replays and fantasizes that take up way too much energy and time from life,

The Proverbs of the Old Testament are filled with wisdom on the importance of not being lazy and preparing for the future. Aesop handled the topic well with the story of the grasshopper and the ants. But Jesus instructed me not to worry about what I was going to eat or wear and to trust God to provide. Was He contradicting the wisdom of Solomon? Absolutely not! No, there is a huge difference between taking care of my responsibilities today to ensure a more stable future, whether it be financially, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, etc and worrying and fretting about what tomorrow might bring. I should do what I can to prepare but then go on with life, trusting God with the outcome. Expectations, after all, are the building blocks of resentment.

If there is a situation that I am dreading enough to fret over, to imagine different scenarios and dialogues about, then there is somewhere in that situation that I am trying to control something out of my control. There is something in that situation that I am not trusting God with. This is true if the situation is something like finding a job, or interaction with another person. These imaginings or possible future scenes are fueled by fear. When it comes to relationships these fears are often about someone else hurting me by not doing what I feel they should. The stem from the idea that I am not going to get my way. And since I have no business trying to control another person and rarely should have my own way in anything, these fears grow from a weed of selfishness that needs to be pulled. At times there is more to it than that though, and fear is sown from anger. Anger that someone or something damaged me or someone I love and fear that they or it will continue to do more damage in the future. Once again this comes from me not trusting God to protect me, to protect my heart, and or to protect those I love. It also grows out of my failure to release the resentment over the initial hurt.

So what does all that really have to do with the West quote? I lose the ability to enjoy the present, to live a life worth living, if I waste the time and energy of the present looking for the storm that may or may not come out of encounters with any person or situation. With situations, I need to prepare myself by making sure my side of the street is clean and that I am constantly walking the road of the next right thing. I need to stay within the direction of God's will and let expectations of outcomes die. I have to stay in the present and trust God with the future. And with people, I still have to keep my side of the street clean. I have to forgive and release anger and resentment. I need to make sure that I see my part in the tension (I have found through experience that I always have a part in any relationship tensions) and own up to and make amends for that part while demanding or expecting no change in attitude or behavior and no apology from the other party. Cleaning up my crap has nothing to do with if my pile is bigger than theirs or if they do any clean up or not. Neither does forgiveness. If I sail into a storm with a boat that is not burdened down under a load of anger and resentment then I will be more able to maneuver to safety under the gentle correcting winds of the Spirit. The alternative is to struggle with a sluggish and unresponsive to the Spirit boat that fights the waves until they tear it asunder. But other than making sure that I am spiritually fit and full of love and forgiveness, I need make no other preparations. While I need to be aware of changes in the spiritual and situation weather, my time is much better spent enjoying the beautiful skies of the present than searching the horizon for storm clouds that have not yet arrived.