March 18, 2025

 I thought I'd write a late night post but I see that by the time I finish the post, it will be early morning on the 18th. I was sidetracked from doing my morning posts. Friend of mine passed away and admittedly, it launched me into a bit of a funk, took me a few days to shake that off, which brought me to the weekend and I had only planned to do those posts during the week, so hey that justified me for not writing for a few more days. I had a few more reports to write so that took 2 more days, etc etc

I wonder if my friend had procrastinated about anything that he never got a chance to do because he died before he was able to complete the task. An idea was forming there but it slipped off the precipice before I was able to grab onto it.

We recently started going to church again. As a child, I went (I almost said religiously when what I meant to say was regularly) to sunday school. When I joined a street gang in the late sixties, I noticed that the other members of the gang didn't go to sunday school so I stopped going. It would be 50+ years before I returned. I'm not much for the organization of religion, but the Reverend is a cool guy and the service isn't too far-fetched. They have a coffee hour after the service and I bake cookies for that. I also help the ladies knit blankets for less fortunate others, a hobby I picked up when I was with Last House on the Block Society, so that's fulfilling work for my soul.

Life could be worse than what it is. My sponsor always says, if you have gratitude, it's hard to be unhappy.

March 6, 2025

 Yesterday, I decided that after I did my morning ritual that I would spend at least an hour writing, to get back into the habit of writing each day.

Yesterday, I wrote a post which served as my writing for the day. I have other projects in the works and I don't think I was subconsciously avoiding doing the work on those. This morning, I got back into those. I have a book of poetry entitled Layman's Guide to Screaming and my plan was to write volume two of that. I had about 6 entries for that, so I wanted to do a couple more at least. I managed to finish one poem that I had already started and looks like I may have completed another one.

Yesterday, I also wrote a report that I needed to have completed for a service commitment I have. I often comment that when I said I wanted to be a writer, paperwork wasn't what I had in mind. But, reports need to be written.

Another flimsy excuse.

 It's Tuesday, March 4, 2025. I was just at my author page on facebook and noticed that I haven't been there in 2 months. I could use the excuse that I've been busy with other things because it's true, I have been busy with other things. Recently, I became involved with my church. They have an outreach program called Blankets of Hope where a group of knitters get together once a month and knit squares for afghan blankets which when completed are donated to Margarets House downtown and the staff there try to find persons less fortunate than us to give them to. We used to be involved with a similar project (Santa Under The Bridge) but we shut that project down in January of this year. So, big coincidence that we would find this project to become involved with. It could be a coincidence, or as a friend of mine likes to say, a Godcidence. Because, as I say, coincidence is how God protects his anonymity.

I have also been involved with the midwinter roundup, an AA event that is held every February. I was co-chair of the committee planning the event and I also managed to get myself volunteering as the Al-anon speaker at the Welcome Meeting on Friday night, last Friday night to be precise. 

I know from experience that when you are the speaker at one of these things there are three stories you tell. The first is the one you tell yourself while you're sitting there waiting to speak. "I should tell them that story." Another one is the story you tell yourself after you sit back down...."Oh shit, I should have told them that one." And , the third one is the story you actually tell while you're up there.

So, I took some notes which I don't usually do. At first, I thought I'll just make a few bullet points to jog my memory. Of course, being long-winded I ended up with four pages of prose which did come in handy and which, with a bit of tweaking, will make a good piece to submit to The Forum, the Al-anon version of The Grapevine. I have had 6 or 7 pieces printed in Grapevine over the years, so who knows. 

Words Have Power

I start every day the same way. I read from 2 books, an AA book and an Al-anon book. Then, I say a little prayer and I pick a word or a slogan from my god box. Then, I share that word with a couple dozen people. Some are people I sponsor. Some are just people I know. Little conversations sometimes result from that. Some of them have their own words they share, some just comment on mine. The whole process takes about an hour and it grounds me enough to go through the day. Today, the slogan was First Things First. Buddy of mine often says the days that I pray almost always turn out better than the days I don't. I can recall way back in the days before I sobered up, God-talk as I called it, made me uncomfortable, sometimes so much that I extricated myself from the conversation. Back then, I didn't believe in those things and I didn't want to believe in those things and I didn't care if you believed as long as you did your believing someplace else. If you're one of those people who doesn't like all that God-talk, here let me get the door for you.

Coincidence or Godcidence.

Someone remarked to me today that something that happened to her was either a Coincidence or a Godcidence. It reminded me of a saying I sometimes use that Coincidence is how God protects His anonymity. And, speaking of anonymity. I have this ritual I do every morning. I read from some daily readers, I say a small peayer, something to the effect of God, show me what to do today, and then I pick a word from my God box. This morning, the word was Anonymity. By Coincidence, I was writing a story last night for the Forum, the monthly journal for Al-Anon. In order to make my point in the story, I would need to break my own anonymity and mention that I am also in AA. So, here I was reminded of the importance of not doing that. 

Was it a coincidence or a godcidence as my friend alluded to?