1302 Days Sober

 Quietly, I often hear from friends in the DM's, 'I'm stopping.' 'I'm quitting.' 'I'm done.'  I know instantly they've seen my story/ies and they have decided it's Day 1. Maybe yesterday, maybe last week. Maybe they will have to start over, or maybe they've pushed through to several months. 

It's the holiday season and open bars are everywhere.   Recipes for sparkling drinks are EVERYWHERE , and the stress level is at a fever pitch.        

For me, today is 1302 days. Out of the blue, I needed to know. I saw a friend post 10 years, and considered what that must feel like. Probably alot like 3.5 years.  Stressful, easy, happy, sad. But that magic concoction that helped me , once upon a time, is no longer any part of the equation of peace. 

The 10 Day Alchohol Detox Plan (book) was one of my guides. I had some things in place, but basically I had just had enough. When it matters more to reclaim your life, you'll do whatever it takes. And I did. I did what it took for me. The first days are HARD. How many days are the 'first days'... well, there's a 10, 31, 66, plans. But it all starts with a decision, that no matter how many times you pour it out, you pour it out. It's no longer wasted money, it's ownership. Owning your mess, your chaos, your time, your life. Mindset is everything. Notice I didn't say willpower. 10 Day Detox (book) helped me, among many things, learn to breathe through the craving, both physical & mental, and deal with what was driving the desire to throw away the rest of the day and continue my current state of chaos. 

I don't have a call to action or advice. I'm just celebrating that day 1302 feels good. Today.  Quietly on a rainy Thursday in November. 

 

Memory, Posessions, and What Really Matters ~~ October 2024

 My thoughts have been spurred in a uniquely challenging way after some reading in Joseph Pearce's fine biography of Alexander Solzhenitsyn:  Solzhenitsyn; A Soul in Exile.  

When beginning this book, I searched out a copy of The Gulag  Archipeligo , Solzhenitsyn's extensive and world influencing master work.  It is the record of  his own existence and survival of one of the most challenging efforts to extinguish an entire portion of civilization by one of the most completely corrupted dictators in all history. At a turning point in Solzhenitsyn's life, and thus in Pearce's record, it is noted that he remembered 12,000 lines of his own verse. He had no paper, and it would have been confiscated and he would have been punished for it anyway. This verse he painstakingly remembered would become one of, if not, the most impactful books to alter the course of human experience. This is no exaggeration. 

Censorship and fear had prevented the truth about the camps from being published, but this story made it into print. The USSR would never be the same again.

"We were absolutely isolated from information, and he started to open our eyes," remembers writer and journalist Vitaly Korotich.

Life in the camps was something "it was impossible even to think about" he says. "I read it and re-read it and I simply thought about how brave he was. We had a lot of writers but we never had such a brave writer."

 

Steve Rosenberg, BBC News, Moscow November,2012

Here is my first question: Given the choice, what would I choose to remember? What 12,000 lines of verse would I commit to memory if I had no way to write them down. Is there a thesis you are developing you would share with others about which you felt compelled to carry in your memory? What would it be. 

Second Question: What do you carry out when the water is washing away all of your earthly goods? What do you grab, if you have even a split second, what do you take with you. 

Thirdly, and for this post- last question: What really matters. Reading Solzhenitsyn's writing & speeches tells of his soul searching, what surfaced after seasons of learning, action, and discipline-- self imposed and that by others against his will. What really matters becomes clear when put to the test. Trivial falls away. 

I cannot recommend enough, Joseph Pearce's biography of Solzhenitsyn. 

I believe one must consider and understand what can happen when freedoms are dismissed when control over others is the goal.   Read 'A Day in the Life of Ivan Dinisovich.' And when you are ready for a true study, The Gulag Archipeligo. 

My first reading of A Soul in Exile, 2016, This post published Fall October 2024.

Start with Day 1, Think Progress & Father's Day

 Thinking of and remembering Dad is easy for me. There is not a day I don't think of him and his simple ways and habits. Dad's accomplishments were that of a great culmination of a life well spent, often found in the 'NSV.' Non-Scale-Victory. His ways were quiet but not effortless. Humble but not without impact. Watching him through the years, we were not always aware of his goals so often marked by his personal declaration of 'day 1.' Looking through his personal books and journals though,  you can see, by dates and arrows, exclamations & 3-color ink, that there was an intentional effort toward progress in this unique man and his life's plan.

Some may have referred to him as a professional student. But as a man who chose to provide for his family, classes with names like 'Ancient History, ' and 'Aramaic 201' were to be accomplished in the margins of daily life. I forget if it was 5 or 7 languages he'd studied and became fluent with, but it was the Scriptures he was most well acquainted--the words, the nuances, the translations. He took his time, took notes, took an interest and profoundly progressed through, quite literally, a world of knowledge. 

Ultimately, if someone remembers Dad, most would say he was influential in their lives, and usually for the better. I know he offered, in moments of great need, comfort and guidance, to those who may not have had a friend or a father to converse with. He was someone who listened and offered wise advice, grace and even tough love, when needed. 

Dad did accomplish one of his personal goals, graduating with excellence & highest marks, with a PhD. (Dad and Mom graduated the same year, ages 72 and 71. It was a remarkable summer; they are both remarkable people.) But it all started with the first step. Back at the beginning of his secondary education, and at the beginning of his life's preaching and teaching career, Dad's speech and communications instructor in his undergraduate studies remarked about one of his assignments was 'one of the best speeches I've had in any class.'  I believe by this time, Dad was preaching at Temple Terrace Church of Christ, Temple Terrace, Fl. married to Mom, and Drake on the way. I see this relic of a homework page and take a mental note: 'Day 1, Day 2, Day 3... Day 20,440...' about the number of days from age 20 to 76. 

I'm deeply thankful for my Dad. His notable and simple habits which guided his humble life are those I miss the most. I miss his brilliant sense of humor, but also his serious and deeply wise moments of insight. When I see him dressed in graduation robes, it is the daily, weekly, quieter moments that brought him to that day that I will reflect on just now. It is the finishing of the drill, one more parsing of a phrase, and one more effort to progress daily that I see the culmination of in this particular and profound moment of success for him.  

If death were no barrier-- Today--I would offer my greatest salutations, all the pomp & circumstance one could muster, and beam with smiling face full of pride for the complete man and father that he was. 

Dad upon receiving his Doctorate in Religious Studies. 2013

LKBS 

Father's Day 6/16/2024

Education, Easter and Early Mornings - April 9, 2023

 'No doubt I should have begun hunting a job at once, but I was hungry for books, anxious to be learning, so I rented a room in a small hotel close to the library and divided my time between it and the shelves of  second - hand bookstores close by.' 

Louis L'Amour, Education of a Wandering Man: A Memoir 

'Win the morning, Win the day,' so says Gary Keller, leader in chief of the largest Real Estate Company in the present world, time stamp April 9, 2023. Currently employed there, we spend quite a bit of our days, searching for the key to success-- not just financial, but in all aspects of life. It is not mistake that I enjoy the work I do that is daily shaped by the question, 'what are you reading?' At Christmas, our Market Center owner's, Brian & Marci Fair, graciously bestowed a stack of 10 of the most amazing books upon each of the members of the Leadership Teams from each of their owned KW Market Centers. My current read: 1000+ Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently was one of those 10 books. A book of lists is not my usual jam, but Marci (who selects the books) knows her stuff-- this book is excellent. Snippets of thought, plugged in like a daily flip calendar. I've been daily reading just a couple of pages at a time. It's excellent. 

I've also been using the Bible App   on my phone to encourage the habit of daily reading. I didn't complete the read-in-a-year program, so I've just gone back and filled in what I missed, days I missed. But sticking with it, just reading. 

The aspect of a daily 'check list' is not lost on me. For years, throughout school, I had a flip steno pad, used as a daily assignment list. It worked. Working full-time now, with technology leading the way, I'm continually challenged, going back and forth between lists I write down and lists I put in my 'Keep' in google. But progress. Working towards efficiency, faster without losing the quality. 

I am reminded that 'We memorize to contemplate, 

Learning moves at a different pace. The concept of learning by heart, memory, internalizing a concept or a precept. But does it? Those who operate and work at high production or at a high level in leadership will tell you, it's the daily habit that defines the trajectory of one's life. Always being in a hurry does not a successful outcome make. The correlations are visible to who knows what concept can be found on what page of the MREA, and on what page the solution can be found in SHIFT. And how we all lean into Atomic Habits. 

Ultimately, we realize, every subject has a liturgy. And if we do not carefully choose the tools we use to measure our learning or consider carefully our ultimate purpose in the learning of a given subject, our efforts may not meet the objective we were ultimately hoping to achieve. Perhaps our objectives are deeper understanding of life, in order to live more in accordance with what God would have us be. Perhaps our objective is to leave a poor choice of habit behind, and our focus must be to eliminate- and we focus on what will fill that void. 

No matter what it is is-- it must have a point where the passion of the soul is stirred, where one must touch the inner most of the mind, and experiences the letting go of the schedule, the list, the box checking. Where one let's go of everything else in order to grab hold of that One Thing. One of the Andrew's describes the common error best:

 'In our rush for output, we skip the non-quantifiable, but essential step of contemplation.'

 And another of the Andrew's(Kern) conversing with Wes Callahan, 

'We memorize to contemplate, not to show off.' 

from 'A Perpetual Feast, 2018. 

In all of the How, the habits, the schedules, the letting go-- I will suggest that the WHAT and WHO matter as well. To be focused just on methodology is lacking if the object of our affection is poorly chosen. To know how we learn best, the depths of our mind's capability and the capacity of our heart- and not KNOW the ONE WHO designed and made us is of the Greatest importance. 

Just because something is old doesn't make it important-- but something that gives greater connectivity to Ancient and Transcendent-- this is the What and the WHO worth our time. 

~~~ 

Today, my mind is skipping about. And that's ok. It is Easter. It is Dad's birthday. It is Sunday. Transitions of life are everywhere. All the memes that speak to me are about aging and gray hair. I enjoy holding my cat and changing out the cute seasonal yard signs like old women do. But the enemy is at the gate, and it is far from time to resign responsibility and purposeful action. The HOW matters. The WHAT is self-evident. The WHO has always been and will always be. 

Keep reading, friends. 

Published 1/26/2024

Saved from the land of unpublished drafts.