a subject way bigger than just one meeting. So I brought it home with me for MIP.
Aloha MIP family...I just returned home from my Sunday "Home" meeting, the Sunday version of AA at the Bay, Hilo HI. It's been home for over 14 years and attendence generally exceeds 40 members of the fellowship in continuous recovery.
Last week someone opened the meeting on the subject love and after I returned home I told my wife that for the 30 years I have been of full scholarship here I can't remember the last meeting or ever for that matter listening to a discussion on love by recovering members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Where have I been or is this a subject drunks generally keep under cover? I don't know but the discussion was awesome and thought provoking and I've had a week to explore what it means to me and what I have learned in recovery from those special members my sponsors and from the other special members who are latent sponsors (everyone else). I've spent the week reflecting and meditating on "Love" for me and found room for growth. So I opened the meeting again with the desire for more input, ESH, from the membership, opened my mind and listened. I heard new perspective and old and recent awareness of mine expressed by others. "God is love" from one and "Love is the absence of Fear" from another (3 years sober). I heard "self love" connected to the security of sobriety and "Unconditional Acceptance."
I found my last longest personal definition being stripped down and away to make space for another higher quality and quantity for love and I am exceptionally grateful again to the fellowship here for their "absense of fear" and courage to put their growth out there without restraint. It's not that my last definition of love was lacking. It was exactly what I needed. I was lacking and need to take in more so that the quality of the 12step is more nearly what my HP can use of me.
I had an experience yesterday while on the way to an Al-Anon function 75 miles from home. We stopped at a "farmers market" because we had time. It would not ordinarily what I would have chosen to do however I was not the driver and the others on board had a greater excitement than I. I came away with a new experience for love. While I was browsing the shops a woman came out of one of them (I didn't know her or she me) an approached me with a welcoming hug. There was no resistance from me because she looked almost the duplicate of a family friend up the road and so I behaved "under the illusion" that I knew her while she explained she was not the person I imagined her to be. I have a memory for faces and relations and this time, had I bet, I would have lost big money. Long story short I was being greeted and hug in an absense of fear and when we parted I remarked that what was also surprising was that she had left the safety of her group fulfilling the compulsion to hug someone she didn't know and who was not looking for a hug...or could I be wrong? Was she the instrument this time? Was she fulfilling a 12th step? Was I being hugged without fear? (yes). The lesson continues and I'm staying in my chair.
Let me open it up to the off shore family in AA recovery, the wider, longer voice. I'd like to hear your feedback...no I need to hear your feedback.
Hey Jerry, I am going to have to think about this one. Its a pretty deep subject. I looked at the post three times and did not know where to start. I'll think on it a bit. Tom
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"You're in the right place. That's the door right there. Turn around."
Jerry, that is such a deep story that it sort of freaks me out. Love? Physical non sexual love expressed by simply coming into contact with another entity in our journey through time and space? When we reduce ourselves beyond our bodies into sparks of life that float through our adventure here on Earth? It is funny that you bring up your story because I have reciently been thinking about how AA allows us to be more open with people and shed much of the..........pride......arrogance....embarrasment...etc that we carry around with us. In a perfect world that is probably how it would be. Its a little strange how after we work the 12 steps we sort of end up in a sort of "state of grace" spiritually and it can be pretty intense when you get people together in that state of grace. I think God or your HP drops these little events into your life to amaze you.
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"You're in the right place. That's the door right there. Turn around."
Aloha TG...I was speaking with another member after this morning meeting about how my home group has discussed the subject two Sundays in a row and how this is not a easy or open subject usually for the meetings and areas I have participated in. He was kinda reflective trying to locate when and where he was last in a discussion about the subject and he too could not find the where and when he had encountered the subject at an open AA meeting. I directed him to the index of our Daily Reflection reader and told him..."You won't find it in this index either". He was skeptical and looked. Its not there. Note how many other responders there are besides you and I here. Eerie!
This remembrance came to mind immediately after reading your Post, but was thinking over whether I would respond, was one of the most intense and private moments of my life.
My first husband had just died very suddenly, in a very tragic way, and my older son wanted to go to the Morturary, where a man, a personal friend of the man I am speaking of, had been a long time friend, so my Son called and said he got an ok for us to go before any procedures were done.
I drove my Son there, let him go in to view his Father, and do his own grieving, which was so intense.
Afterwards he opened the door and invited me in, and I went back into that room by myself, to have a private moment. I have to say that because of the suddenness of this death, I had been Praying 24/7, but I walked to the back, and looked down with such sadness, and without any warning, I leaned over, touched his Face, and kissed him on the forehead, and said at the same time, "So sorry for all the Bickering" Peter.
I sat in that room and closed my eyes for a few minutes. and I was completely overwhelmed at what came to me in sort of a flash, an Awareness that the ONLY Real emotion is the overpowering emotion of Love. I sat there with tears rolling down my face, first for my first husband, and there was this very quiet awareness that I had just been given. I felt only Love for this man, that I had been married to and then dovorced. It also came to me so clearly that when we choose to Love a person, that never goes away, it transends itself into just a simple truth. I was crying I think because I was just given this AWESOME awareness. Blame, resentments, anger, all made up by us. Well speaking for myself, we layer on those other emotions to cover up what we dont want to see or face.
I will always be so Greatful to a Loving God for allowing me this gift. Right in the middle of all that Pain, there is was, the Stronger and more Powerful emotion of very simple and pure LOVE.
Thanks Jerry fo this Post.
Toni
-- Edited by toni baloney on Monday 17th of August 2009 08:24:21 PM
Well Just as Tom wrote, along with mine too, different scenarios, but both the same emotion comes up. When we practice the 11 Step, there we will find it too, in my opinion. That Grace of God, Tom was referring to.
I believe love is everywhere, we don't have to be practicing the 11 step, as an example is when we are dealing with someone that might be temporaily really getting on our nerves, and look in the opposite direction, and say inside "what is it in this person that is very Special, as a Child of God, what are his/her wonderful attributes, and if the encounter lasts long enough, and we are waiting for an answer, before the encounter is over, we will see this person in a new bright light, no longer being offended, but at peace with the person, and with ourselves.
Daily giving up our Ego's preceived notions of what I think I know, to understanding thought our HP, that what I think I know, if completely faulty.
This awesome Program has helped us come out of the dark isolation of drunkenness into a whole new world, where we experience true friendships, and leading us always to that very simple Gratitude and Thank You to God for our lives and HIS LOVE and Grace.
Hope we get some more responses, it would be so wonderful to see 20 individual responses to this great Post.
Toodles, Toni
-- Edited by toni baloney on Tuesday 18th of August 2009 09:49:26 AM
A friend of mine shared at the last minute before Friday's meeting closed that 'Love is giving us room to grow' whether to ourselves or to others I really liked this :) Thank you for sharing here, Jerry et al :) Danielle x
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Progress not perfection.. & Practice makes Progress!
