I Go to Meetings

I Go to Meetings

Happy Birthday -
Alcoholics Anonymous (June 10, 1935 - 84 years!)
& Al-Anon (May of 1951 - 68 years!)

I go to meetings
because I don't live in a vacuum,
because I have relationships,
because I am in relationship with myself,
all the while trying to unravel
the threads of my being,
and trying also to listen patiently
to my bleeding heart
and my anxious mind.
 
I am wanting to change,
but before I can realize change
I must sit in a room
with familiar strangers,
all of us weaving together our stories
into a book called life.
 
Even when I don't go to meetings
I find myself at a meeting
with my memories of other meetings,
with mystical beings just beyond my senses,
with nature while spending time outdoors.
And it is during these moments,
when I'm in communion with all of life,
that I grow tall like Thoreau's corn,
silently in the summer night.
 
I go to meetings
because it's where I can bring
my true self - warts and all,
and it's where I'm forced
to face my imperfections
right beside my contradictions,
and not be judged for any of them.
 
Meetings are where I learn acceptance
for myself and for everyone else,
and it's where suffering becomes the power
to author life in others.
 
I go to meetings
because I don't know
what it is I don't know,
and the very best way for me
to remain close to my Higher Power
is to give myself over to love.

---

Lord,
put your arm around my shoulder
and your hand over my mouth.
~ Anonymous Al-Anon Slogan