Three flowers, battered, bruised and torn, one plant, tattered but blooming still. Beautiful to me.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Image 4
Three flowers, battered, bruised and torn, one plant, tattered but blooming still. Beautiful to me.
Image 2
Beaten by the elements, bent but never broken, bound by others (the spider and web ~ hard to see on small image but the web is there between the leaves and bud and the spider is a little below left of where the stem joins the bud) but always still turning to the sun and remaining beautiful. Amazing.
Image 1 ~ May 20, 2010
I felt like this was the perfect image to start with. Why? Well, part of the reason is that while I have been wanting to start shooting again for a while and have also been toying with the project365 idea for a couple of months, this is the first thing I've seen that has made me do a U-Turn on the highway to go back and take the shot. I used to be like that daily almost. It's been years though. It feels like part of me is coming back to life. This image is my hope that this is true, which is why I decided to make it the first and commit to the project.
Project 365
I started this a few days ago, so I have some catch up posting to do. Project365 is a photography project where I will attempt to take 365 photgraphs over the next year. Now, if I miss a day, I may take two another day, the goal is 365 in a year, not one a day, although that is what I will strive for. But it's more than just push a button every day. The idea is to take a photograph that means something, if only to me, that symbolizes a feeling or idea, or captures a moment that is important to me that day, or as an image is worth a thousand words, simply acts as a journal entry for the day I took it. I will include the images with this blog, and from time to time will explain why I chose the particualr image. If no one gets anything else from it, I hope someone finds pleasure in viewing the work.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Screw Guilt
Obviously my trip down Highway 164 took a detour not too long ago. I tried and failed to get back on the road a few times, but I believe I have found the entrance ramp and have safely merged back into the flow of recovery. I pray this is true. I don’t want to die. Despite my recent actions, I truly do not.
But the question remains how and why did I leave the road in the first place? I had found the route and traveled along it for over 15 months before skidding into the ditch. What went wrong? I need to know this so that I can take measures not to repeat the mistake. This is how to make progress without beating myself up for having a wreck, learn from it.
And while I would dearly love to keep this information to myself, I know I am not terminally unique. If I am going to have any hope of seeing the promise come true that I will see how my past experiences can benefit others, I have to be willing to be honest about it.
I have heard it said and firmly believe that our secrets will kill us. In my experience people most often say this when trying to point out the importance of not hiding things or leaving things out when working the fourth and fifth steps [ 4) Made a fearless and thorough moral inventory of ourselves. 5) Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another person the exact nature of our wrongs. ], but while it was a secret that nearly killed me, it was not anything that I left out of my very thorough first fourth step.
In December, after his sister died shortly before Christmas and his family acted with pure malice toward him while planning the funeral, my partner, Andrew, invited me to New Orleans with him for New Year’s Eve. Andrew had three and a half years of sobriety but not for one minute did I truly feel he was safe in New Orleans or spiritually fit for the trip. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t ask to do something else, or to ring in the new year with just us. I let him make his own choice, and it was his choice to make.
I can not control other people, places or things. To try is insanity. To hold myself responsible for someone else’s choices is insane. That’s why I need a power greater than myself to restore me to sanity, because I’m insane. I blamed myself for Andrew’s relapse. Blamed is the wrong tense. Rigorous honesty? I blame myself.
I took responsibility for something I had no responsibility over, blamed myself for what someone else did, and took as my own the resulting guilt and shame when 17 days after he went back out he died. But that’s a speed bump, not an exit off the highway.
Once again, our secrets will kill us. I told no one what I was feeling and thinking, not even my spiritual advisor. I kept it inside and let it eat at me like a cancer. Soon I slipped back into self-loathing and self-centeredness. It has been written that selfishness and self-centeredness are the root of my problem. I returned to my roots. But I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t bring it up at a single meeting. I didn’t tell any of the people I tell “everything.” I pushed it down and tried to will it away. Didn’t work.
As it ate at me, my daily period of reflection where I continue to take personal inventory and when wrong promptly admit it became twisted. Why? First, because I didn’t admit that I felt wrong, promptly or otherwise, and secondly, because as I sank into self my review became less and less a time of reflection to learn from mistakes and acknowledge triumphs and more a time to focus on the negative. My gratitude withered away like grass during drought. Prayer? Less and less. As I stopped praying I lost more and more of the conscious contact with my Higher Power. My spiritual fitness wasn’t very fit at all.
We have a daily reprieve from alcoholism and addiction contingent upon the continued maintenance of our spiritual condition. There will come a time in every addict’s life when one has no defense against using or drinking, not the fear of consequences, not love of family and friends, not a 100 meetings or support groups….nothing except our relationship with our God can protect us at that moment. And when not tapped in to our Higher Power, we are left in the dark, defenseless and vulnerable and destined to fail if that moment arrives.
This is the state I allowed myself to fall into when I isolated, stopped praying, and refused to admit to others and myself what was going on in my heart and in my mind. And once again I felt a God-shaped hole form in my life. I let the shame from the belief and feeling that I had caused the death of the man I loved to keep me from running to the one thing that could fill that hole…God. I grew more and more miserable, afraid, and angry. Eventually that moment came, when the idea of picking up the chains of my previous bondage felt like a good idea, Insanity had returned. I went back out, like a dog returning to his vomit as one book puts it. And then I let the shame of my relapse and the fear of having to admit I’d helped this damn disease kill Andrew keep me from truly returning. I didn’t want to do an inventory, because I didn’t want to have to look at my guilt and shame. Without working the steps I knew to take, I could not regain traction on the highway of recovery. I couldn’t string together more than a week or two of sobriety without slipping and sliding back off the road.
Today is day four. I have no proof yet that I have found traction. Yet I believe I do. Why? Because this time I threw the secrets out of the trunk. I faced my fear and admitted my shame. And I am still alive. It didn’t kill me to speak (or in this case, write) these things. And now I will attempt to cling to two truths. One, while Andrew bears the responsibility for his choices, not I. I do have a part in what happened. But there is no condemnation in that. Not if I learn from it. I know that my God forgives. Two, while it is very true that I feel responsibility and guilt for Andrew’s relapse and death, not everything I think and not everything I feel is necessarily true.
So that is what happened, and why this time I believe I will succeed in regaining my recovery. I guess only time will tell.
But the question remains how and why did I leave the road in the first place? I had found the route and traveled along it for over 15 months before skidding into the ditch. What went wrong? I need to know this so that I can take measures not to repeat the mistake. This is how to make progress without beating myself up for having a wreck, learn from it.
And while I would dearly love to keep this information to myself, I know I am not terminally unique. If I am going to have any hope of seeing the promise come true that I will see how my past experiences can benefit others, I have to be willing to be honest about it.
I have heard it said and firmly believe that our secrets will kill us. In my experience people most often say this when trying to point out the importance of not hiding things or leaving things out when working the fourth and fifth steps [ 4) Made a fearless and thorough moral inventory of ourselves. 5) Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another person the exact nature of our wrongs. ], but while it was a secret that nearly killed me, it was not anything that I left out of my very thorough first fourth step.
In December, after his sister died shortly before Christmas and his family acted with pure malice toward him while planning the funeral, my partner, Andrew, invited me to New Orleans with him for New Year’s Eve. Andrew had three and a half years of sobriety but not for one minute did I truly feel he was safe in New Orleans or spiritually fit for the trip. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t ask to do something else, or to ring in the new year with just us. I let him make his own choice, and it was his choice to make.
I can not control other people, places or things. To try is insanity. To hold myself responsible for someone else’s choices is insane. That’s why I need a power greater than myself to restore me to sanity, because I’m insane. I blamed myself for Andrew’s relapse. Blamed is the wrong tense. Rigorous honesty? I blame myself.
I took responsibility for something I had no responsibility over, blamed myself for what someone else did, and took as my own the resulting guilt and shame when 17 days after he went back out he died. But that’s a speed bump, not an exit off the highway.
Once again, our secrets will kill us. I told no one what I was feeling and thinking, not even my spiritual advisor. I kept it inside and let it eat at me like a cancer. Soon I slipped back into self-loathing and self-centeredness. It has been written that selfishness and self-centeredness are the root of my problem. I returned to my roots. But I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t bring it up at a single meeting. I didn’t tell any of the people I tell “everything.” I pushed it down and tried to will it away. Didn’t work.
As it ate at me, my daily period of reflection where I continue to take personal inventory and when wrong promptly admit it became twisted. Why? First, because I didn’t admit that I felt wrong, promptly or otherwise, and secondly, because as I sank into self my review became less and less a time of reflection to learn from mistakes and acknowledge triumphs and more a time to focus on the negative. My gratitude withered away like grass during drought. Prayer? Less and less. As I stopped praying I lost more and more of the conscious contact with my Higher Power. My spiritual fitness wasn’t very fit at all.
We have a daily reprieve from alcoholism and addiction contingent upon the continued maintenance of our spiritual condition. There will come a time in every addict’s life when one has no defense against using or drinking, not the fear of consequences, not love of family and friends, not a 100 meetings or support groups….nothing except our relationship with our God can protect us at that moment. And when not tapped in to our Higher Power, we are left in the dark, defenseless and vulnerable and destined to fail if that moment arrives.
This is the state I allowed myself to fall into when I isolated, stopped praying, and refused to admit to others and myself what was going on in my heart and in my mind. And once again I felt a God-shaped hole form in my life. I let the shame from the belief and feeling that I had caused the death of the man I loved to keep me from running to the one thing that could fill that hole…God. I grew more and more miserable, afraid, and angry. Eventually that moment came, when the idea of picking up the chains of my previous bondage felt like a good idea, Insanity had returned. I went back out, like a dog returning to his vomit as one book puts it. And then I let the shame of my relapse and the fear of having to admit I’d helped this damn disease kill Andrew keep me from truly returning. I didn’t want to do an inventory, because I didn’t want to have to look at my guilt and shame. Without working the steps I knew to take, I could not regain traction on the highway of recovery. I couldn’t string together more than a week or two of sobriety without slipping and sliding back off the road.
Today is day four. I have no proof yet that I have found traction. Yet I believe I do. Why? Because this time I threw the secrets out of the trunk. I faced my fear and admitted my shame. And I am still alive. It didn’t kill me to speak (or in this case, write) these things. And now I will attempt to cling to two truths. One, while Andrew bears the responsibility for his choices, not I. I do have a part in what happened. But there is no condemnation in that. Not if I learn from it. I know that my God forgives. Two, while it is very true that I feel responsibility and guilt for Andrew’s relapse and death, not everything I think and not everything I feel is necessarily true.
So that is what happened, and why this time I believe I will succeed in regaining my recovery. I guess only time will tell.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Trying to finnd my way back to the Highway...
About 5 months ago my partner's sister died of Lupes. Andrew managed to get there before she died and that was good, but while that trip enabled him to see his sister before she died it also stuck him in a house with his parents for a week. His wonderful Reverend Father and mother threw him out on the streets at 15 and didn't speak to him for another 15 years in the name of tough love because he had the audacity to come out of the closest and admit he was a homosexual.
After a week with them he felt ready to die. I tried to help but failed him. A couple of weeks later he threw away three and a half years of sobriety and began using drugs again. Now, let me be clear I don't only blame his parents. Andrew is responsible for the choices and mistakes he made, just as I am responsible, and no one else, for my own recent failures in this area. Sixteen days after Andrew started using again he overdosed and died. January 16, four months ago today.
It's killing me. I don't understand why so many who claim to be followers of Christ insist on practicing rejection and cruelty in the name of tough love. Can you imagine how different the story would have been had Jesus practiced tough love with the prostitute caught in the act of adultery by the religious leaders? And not to stray too far from the subject, but if she was caught in the act as they said, where was the dude? Anyway, I have tried and failed to remember a single time where Jesus used cruelty and rejection to deal with sinners. Please wake up; this shit is killing people. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. How did we stray so far from that?
Andrew I loved you. I still do. I miss you so much. I am so sorry I couldn't help you get back out. That I couldn't be enough to comfort the pain you felt. That I let you down. I'm sorry. And I am sorry that I wasn't stronger myself, that I did the very thing that I got so angry at you about...that I went back out to get some more misery and let my friends, family and supporters, not to mention my God down.
I thank God for an earthly father who lives an example of Christ-like love and gave me an understanding of the concept of mercy, love and forgiveness rather than hatred, rejection, fire and brimstone. Because of this I can believe in forgiveness from God, because I have seen it in my earthly father I can believe it from a Heavenly Father. I can accept the philosophy of progress not perfection and release myself from the bondage of legalism and expectations I set too high for myself. I don't have to follow you into the ground, and while I miss you terribly, I pray that I regain my recovery. I can take a detour back onto the route that God put me on over a year ago that leads to a place of serenity, where I can be happy, joyous and free as God wants me to be. I know we'll meet in heaven one day, but it doesn't have to be soon.
After a week with them he felt ready to die. I tried to help but failed him. A couple of weeks later he threw away three and a half years of sobriety and began using drugs again. Now, let me be clear I don't only blame his parents. Andrew is responsible for the choices and mistakes he made, just as I am responsible, and no one else, for my own recent failures in this area. Sixteen days after Andrew started using again he overdosed and died. January 16, four months ago today.
It's killing me. I don't understand why so many who claim to be followers of Christ insist on practicing rejection and cruelty in the name of tough love. Can you imagine how different the story would have been had Jesus practiced tough love with the prostitute caught in the act of adultery by the religious leaders? And not to stray too far from the subject, but if she was caught in the act as they said, where was the dude? Anyway, I have tried and failed to remember a single time where Jesus used cruelty and rejection to deal with sinners. Please wake up; this shit is killing people. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. How did we stray so far from that?
Andrew I loved you. I still do. I miss you so much. I am so sorry I couldn't help you get back out. That I couldn't be enough to comfort the pain you felt. That I let you down. I'm sorry. And I am sorry that I wasn't stronger myself, that I did the very thing that I got so angry at you about...that I went back out to get some more misery and let my friends, family and supporters, not to mention my God down.
I thank God for an earthly father who lives an example of Christ-like love and gave me an understanding of the concept of mercy, love and forgiveness rather than hatred, rejection, fire and brimstone. Because of this I can believe in forgiveness from God, because I have seen it in my earthly father I can believe it from a Heavenly Father. I can accept the philosophy of progress not perfection and release myself from the bondage of legalism and expectations I set too high for myself. I don't have to follow you into the ground, and while I miss you terribly, I pray that I regain my recovery. I can take a detour back onto the route that God put me on over a year ago that leads to a place of serenity, where I can be happy, joyous and free as God wants me to be. I know we'll meet in heaven one day, but it doesn't have to be soon.
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