The Irish (Art)

   Chicago Irish, brawny, brawling, political, tough, savvy, street smart;  searched my history here and there, it's the same.  A strange account of an unusual and gifted people.
   I am a cliche, an Irish alcoholic and writer; I guess stereotype is based in fact.
   Romantic identity with the old country, images of Kings and Sons of Kings.
   Rolling green expanse, rock walls and streams, impossible and impassable roads. 
   Ready to defend her honor, knee jerk reactivity to criticism, or just like to fight; a little bit of both.                  
   American Irish, more Irish than the Irish.  Inherent identity with suffering and rejection; feeling forever the responsibility and guilt of the victim. 
   Irish ethnic wound, blanketed and saturated with repressive shame.
   Inbred rebellious, natural suspicion, hatred for authority.  Defiant to the core.  Fused in our souls is a love of land, no matter how bleak and barren it may be, it belongs to us; so get the fuck out, go kill someone else.
   Vanquished to the 4 corners; cast out and outcasted.
   Continually conquered but never subjugated.  True to themselves.
   Suckered by their Church, souls owned lock stock.  The only complete control ever allowed over   their character.  Sold a line of shit, bought whole cloth for mellenia.  Guilt swallowed and digested becoming part of our marrow.  Forever never good enough.  Redemption is only a death away; let us know how that works out for you. 
   Natural violence, cold blooded, stark, committed, target driven hatred.  Rebels, always with a cause; obsessively patriotic;  instilled with an inherent brutality.   IRA as common and accepted as life itself, for they will not be ruled.  English bit off much more than they could chew when it came to the Irish. They had no idea how much hatred they could sustain or the duration and depth of that hatred.
Be careful, if you are Irish and start to read about our history, especially since 1850.  I guarantee you will be shocked, infuriated, saddened, hardened, and chilled by what you read.   You'll understand the why of the IRA.
   The "Troubles" always the troubles.  
    Slick, conniving, bitter and conning; look you right in the eye and stab you when you turned. 
   Powerful ethnic identity, one that adheres like a skin, no matter where you were born.  So similar to one another in outlook, personality, pathology, intellect and mannerisms.
    Shocking history of pain, oppression, starvation,  rejection and attempted genocide.  The Potato Famine, contrived and created by the English to obliterate and exterminate the Irish.  Why were the Irish such a favored target to release hate upon; they have no resources except a ready population that could be used to murder just for the hell of it.  Odd human trait that unconscious self hate needs to be directed at an external target, the Irish, always favored.
     How did they survive?  A country of 3 million people, and yet they did survive.  The Irish character was formed by that history and the fallout of losing their people not only to murder but to attrition to other lands, esp  America.
    The American  Funeral was created.  Coffin ships filled with the dead, or soon to be, headed for the US.  If all were consumed on board, so be it.  Barbarous tyrannical savagery.  Even the negro slave ships had cargo that was valuable.  The Irish received no such consideration.   The hardness, cold, calculating, emotionally isolated, and strong personalities were welded by such overpowering experiences.  The exodus of its citizens to other lands, just to survive the English purge.  American Irish "need not apply."  The land of dreams started as a nightmare for the arriving Irish.  From rural squalor to big city ghetto.
    Protectors of civilization.  Lovers of the written word; great deference and respect for great writing, and they know the difference.  People living in stuperous poverty, degenerated to eating grass;  deprivation and starvation but literate to a man.  The famed Irish poets, playwrights and story tellers.  Ability to feel intimately through the word, yet unable to express it otherwise.  How does a bunch of unsophisticated potato farmers live in such awareness, recognition and awe of high culture?  Odd, isn't it?   To this day, artist can live in Ireland and pay no taxes.
    No great Irish painters, canvas and oils were too expensive; too much a luxury.
    Uniquely suited for America.  The "machine" political structure was a creation from Ireland, where the people built a power system within the English imposed system.  A natural to simply insert that system here.  The machine and the gangster, arm in arm, into the new world of America they strode and prospered.
    Ireland, the "terrible beauty" has left a lasting scar on the Irish soul.  That wound has been passed throughout the generations whether here or there.  The cynicism, the wariness, suspicion, clannishness, unpredictability, gallows humor, and violence are all inbred as if a part of our very genetics.  We all feel it, identify with it, and respond to it.
    Politically astute and manipulative.
    Love to inflict harm on the unjust.  Vengeance be theirs, saith the Lord.  Idealists.  They must be if they really thought they could move the English out of Ireland forever.
   Passionate when driven by cause.  Brooding, mercurial, and dark by nature.
   Education and the written word used as weapons against oppression and tyranny;  a way out and up.
   Cunning, cold, cruel; an extremely dangerous brand of killer we can produce.  Watch your back if you betray us.
   Educated, sophisticated bunch of hillbillies we are.  Strange brew, we Irish.   Quick witted, quick fist ed.
   Irish sense of humor;  we chose to create it out of sadness and pain; a wonderful choice.   We can laugh at anything and find humor in the strangest of places.  The most fun I had recently was at my cousins funeral, it was hilarious.  My brother was on his game and I couldn't stop laughing; it was the eulogy that did it.
    The Irish "glow."  Their personalities can be so damn likable; a beautiful blend of smart, funny, witty, sharp, honest, and cynical.  A powerful energy they can carry and manipulate.  They can con the pants off you, and leave you stunned and laughing while they walk away with them.  It's amazing to watch an Irishman hold court and enthrall an audience.  Natural actors and showmen.
   Great story tellers and spinners of fabled yarns; fanciful, improbable, irrational, but who cares?
   "Luck of the Irish."  Nice to think we are lucky in some way.  People make their own luck and the Irish were never afraid to work for what they wanted.
    Catholic redemption and forgiveness?  The church watched without assistance the carnage and decimation of the Irish and offered platitudes, sermons, and guilt.  I'm not sure what a victim of injustice may need any redemption for anyway; you tell me.  They needed guns and money, not confessionals.  The idea of heaven sounds great, but we are living in a hell without end right now.  Shame on the Catholic Church for standing by idle while genocide was committed against her own people.  You pompous, arrogant, distant, and insulated fucks.  Another bit of slick trickery was how they populated and fed the ranks of the priesthood.  Each family was to give one up.  It was the unspoken and unwritten law.  As the kids grew, there was an unconscious weeding process and
manipulation of one or more of the boys.  "That one there, he's headed for the alter."  As if you
had no choice in the matter.  The family could purchase wholesale redemption for everyone through
this selection process.  Give one up, to get all of us in; a small price to pay, unless you are the one
being given up.  Clever huh?  And we didn't have to do a thing except throw an innocent on the pyre.
     Leaders and doers.  The most successful ethnic group in America, riving even the Jews.  MD's, JD's, PHD's, Masters, and college education and per capita income are the highest in the US per 1000 inhabitants.  We flock to Law and Medicine; the power occupations.  The Irish like being in control and law always offered that avenue.  Money is good, but power is better; power is protection.
   The Irish women.  Maybe the man was either working or drinking and not around often, but  Irish women are a powerful force to be reckoned with, in the home and away from it.   They can be the most stunningly beautiful and captivating creatures on earth, especially the "Black Irish."  The soft sensuous Irish features with brilliant light eyes; skin of cream without blemish; flowing black hair and eyebrows, and a strong willed energetic presence.  Lovely and enticing but dangerous all in the same moment.  Perfect contrast of the sacred and profane.  It may be hard wired in, but I love Irish beauty.
I have been lost in my affection and love for a couple of them throughout my life; enchanting, sexy, smart, fearless, and strong.  The other side; cold, distant, disdaining, mercurial, and sexually manipulative.  Well, you can't have one without the other.  If you can handle them, complete, complex, and exceedingly good women.  Solid and tough.
     Naturally suspicious.  You can only get so close to the Irish; hard to grasp and hold down; ethereal and smokey.  They know how to nurse a grudge and chew on a resentment, sometimes forever.  Not a very forgiving lot.
    Clannish to the extreme.  South, West, and North side Irish, area clans; all slightly different and overly protective of their turf, usually their parish. 
   Natural fighters.  The toughest kids I knew growing up were all Irish; my brother being the cream of that crop.  They love to mix it up and feel strangely satisfied when their bodies feel the wounds of  battle.  It  feels so good to hit someone and get hit back by them.  We love a good, healthy bit of blood letting;  It's good for the soul.
    Lovers of death; ideation and preoccupation with death.  The celebration when someone slipped the mortal coil.  Release from the pain and anguish of life; escape forever the curse for living, sentence served.  The body on display in the home while the keeners wailed.  The wake, a 3 day affair.  Maybe it was the only time we could show any soft emotion; so guarded and suspicious otherwise.  Mortician was a chosen occupation of many Irish; makes sense, the dead don't need anything and don't want anything, and they don't talk back.   Odd hobby reading the obituaries daily, the Irish Scratch Sheet.  Obituary Box.  My mother had one on her desk which contained the obits of everyone she knew who had passed; unusual proclivity or just the fanciful musings of a young Irish girl; take your pick.
     The desire for escape and release may account for why the Irish drink so much.  They do love to imbibe.   Chicago AA, filled with Irish alcoholics; a dubious distinction; but better here than the alternative.   Pub life was the social center for the Irish, and may account for the mythology of their heavy drinking.   Many old country Irish did not drink at home or on Sunday.  Irish do like to drink, and when they have a problem with it, it is an exceedingly ugly one.  It is the demon, and it can run wild in their natures; it breeds violence, bitterness, and self hate.  It horribly disfigures their offspring and destroys all loving.  My father was such a drunk.  It killed his beauty and heart and poisoned his soul.  It altered and deformed his tenderness and humanity until it was completely extinguished.  I have felt the lash of Irish alcoholism; I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.  The strange preoccupation with death may also breed the self destruction that many Irish display.  The alleviation of sorrow and spiritual deliverance may be what is sought, rather than destruction.  Whatever it is, the Irish are better off not drinking.  Interestingly, the name they have given alcohol is the "creature."  Is that not an ominous and foreboding label?  Think about what is conjured up by that name.  Powerful and frightening images attack the senses, darkly consume, shadow the heart, terrify and bewilder.  Because that's what it is, and what it does.
   So we are an odd and beautiful lot, we Irish.  Funny, engaging, cunning, brooding, violent, tender, artistic, vengeful, enchanting, witty, hateful, smart, quick, patriotic, sinful, brutal, bitter, stoic, warm, friendly, cruel, ruthless, compassionate, detached, distant, cold, strangely loving, educated, rebellious,  handsome, lovely, successful, poetic, political, manipulative, grudging, captivating,  complex, resentful, unreachable, and human.  I am flushed with a deep pride when I think about what happened.   Who we were, where we came from, and what we have been able to accomplish in the world.  For the Irish are everywhere.  A group of potato farmers saved European literature and became the most successful people on the planet. They truly have become Kings and sons of Kings.  Be well all you kin and kindred out there.  You belong to a unique and complete lineage, be proud of it.

                                                             Yours in kinship
                                                                                               Mike C.

School Daze (Art)

       Most children love grammar school, just can't wait to get there, as if that's some kids idea of real fun.   A forum for success and educational excellence.  A place to shine, to be seen, to be attended to, to be stroked, to be uplifted and inspired; an institution of inquiry, wonder, development, and thought.  A breeding ground for great success in life.   Not really, and certainly not for me.  I hated grammar school with a passion exceeding all others; I hated high school even more, if that were somehow possible, but that for another day.  I went to a Catholic grammar school, St Vincent Ferrer, in the upscale and wealthy area of River Forest, Illinois.  It encompassed Elmwood Park and the north side of River Forest.  The student composition was mostly immigrant stock who had made it, those who aspired to, and realized the American Dream.  Post WWII baby boomers.  Second and third generation, predominately Italian, some Irish, some Poles, and a few mutts.  An area saturated with the strict and staunch Catholic upbringing of that era (1960's).   Spare the rod and spoil the child.   I had no idea that there were any other religions in the world.   But I do remember going to a Lutheran Church, on some outreach program, I'm sure to see if we could convert them back to the "real religion".   As I sat in their church, I felt an overwhelming sadness for the heathens because they weren't going to go to heaven.  The poor bastards didn't even know it, sad isn't it?   Bred and inbred, genetically altered to accept the irrational ideas and attitudes of the Catholic Church, we marched lock step to its primary institution of training and indoctrination.  All dressed the same in the military fashion of white shirt, dark blue tie and dark slacks.  Soldiers of Christ we were called and we were armed with the necessary guilt required to perform our tasks with the utmost expediency.  Like good soldiers we were never to question the decisions and behaviors of our superiors.  Into the valley rode the 600.   Unconscious soldiers of Christ, that's better for all concerned, don't you think?   Because if you really thought about it, Catholic philosophy is rejectable on its face.  Not only ludicrously irrational, but manipulative and controlling through the purposeful use of guilt and shame.  If heaven does exist, you can be damn sure, that the Catholics will be excluded from it, for all the shit they have pulled off.
Selling heaven, purchasing plenary indulgences and annulments, the cemetery and crematory business, what a scam, and tax exempt to boot.  Selling the pie in the sky fantasy of eternal bliss and redemption, for cash.  The hard currency of the wicked and profane.  There really is a sucker born every minute.  Those fuckers had it all figured out.  But who thinks that clearly when you're young, especially when your damnation hangs in the balance; the threat of perdition looms constantly.  Guilt, force fed and digested, becoming part of the marrow.  I was compelled to always try to do better, just to get back to even.
      I mean you come into this wondrous and beautiful world, completely innocent and open to all of its bounty, awed by life itself,  and the Catholics zealously contrive and instill the belief of "Original Sin" in you.  What a crock of shit that is.  You are marred, imperfect, impure, failed and inherently a sinner, disfigured and cursed beyond any mortal repair,  just by being born; or at least until your baptism;  whew!  I was hoping that wasn't the end of the story.   Thank God I made it that far or I would have ended up in the nether lands, lost forever, vanquished to a place called Limbo, where no souls ever return from.   Doesn't sound like a place you would even want to visit much less live forever.  I thought God was loving, that place sounds pretty cruel and vacant to me.  Maybe God has a different idea of what love is and my failed and limited self could not comprehend such a generous and magnanimous place such as Limbo.  I'm sure that's it.   Limbo is different than Purgatory.  Purgatory is where you writhe in a semi hot fire until all that sin is burnt away, the greater the asshole you were, the longer you will spend there; but you have to be careful about being completely corrupt, that's what Hell is for.  So you need to ride a fine line, you can be evil, but not too evil.   It's a balancing act that only God knows what side of the line you are on at any given time; but life is risky.  Step right up sucker and take a chance on the wheel of endless rapture; only a dollar.   Anyway, what's an eternity or two matter in the grand scheme of things?    Kind of like spending a long time in triple A ball in the Sahara Desert before making the majors.  Wow, I thought I was ok until I heard all that.  I guess I am fucked up beyond human intervention.  I'll try to remember that the next time I'm going to commit a mortal sin.  You know that masturbation is a mortal sin.  I'm in some real trouble now.
     There are a number of strategies that any one can employ when approaching an institution of control such as Catholic school.  You can become a wall flower.  Don't make any waves; don't be noticed; recede into the background.  Don't distinguish yourself in any way; become part of the furniture;  and, for God's sake, don't fuck up.  Endure countless indignities and abuse in silent scorn, and grow into an adult filled with resentments and bitterness, and a burning desire to make someone pay.  These are the future small minded bureaucrats and high school teachers.  The opposite tack is to become a star.  Rules followed to the letter of the law.  Homework completed perfectly and never late; straight A's with maddening frequency;  surrogate when the teacher has to leave momentarily.  Always so fucking helpful and personally obnoxious.  A controlling and neurotic pain in the ass.  The OCD crowd; the MD's and JD's of the future.   Another path was to become an ass kisser and brown noser of sublime quality, the real phony manipulators and con men of life.  The lazy ones with personality but no real desire to do anything but completely bullshit their way through life;  petty, gossipy, and useless. "yes sister,"   "no sister,"  "can I wipe your ass sister?"   "I would never do that sister, but I know who did it."  The real pussy's in the class; backstabbing tattletale fuck heads.   Always deflecting heat off themselves on to others while simultaneously taking credit for anything good, even when they had nothing to do with it;  destined to be the car salesman and politicians of the bunch.    Lastly you can rebel against all the bullshit they feed you and make being your teacher feel as though she would rather have oral surgery than to deal with you.   You're so afraid of hell, let's see if I can give you a little taste of it while you're still alive;  never go along, never get along; continually conspiring with the like minded to obstruct and inhibit the peaceful;  resistance and defiance are its credo.   Whole heartedly committed to becoming a true thorn in the soft side of Catholicism; the alcoholics and artists.  That which I proudly aspired to, and succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.   Fuck em.  Most never deserved any real respect anyway.
      I'm sure there were other types, but those predominated the overall makeup of my 8th grade class; future petty bureaucrats, self inflated doctors, boring lawyers, corrupt politicians, phony salesman and alcoholics, and probably a few hookers thrown in for good measure, just to round out the curve.  Pretty normal composition of the average white middle class neighborhood of the 1960's. 
   I was taught almost exclusively by nuns, except for one non-nun, Miss Leen.  I still run into her every now and then in the neighborhood,  a very good lady.  Now, to the classroom.   We had a homeroom where we spent most of our time and where we started and ended each day.  The bell would ring, those fucking bells, like rats to a stimulus, we would file to one of the other 3 classrooms teaching a different subject.   My home room was headed by a former member of the SS named Sister Genora, who escaped Nazi Germany by masquerading as a Catholic Nun.  Her job as a nun was so similar to her job as a SS Commandant,  why bother to head for Venezuela.    What a fucking bitch she was; mean spirited, raging, disdaining, rule bound, perfectionistic, extremely heavy handed, and tyrannical.  Small minded dictator.  You knew you were in for some real shit when you heard those rosary beads banging against her leg while she sprinted towards you with a singular intent, armed with one of those long wooden pointers.   Not a tough disciplinarian, but a bitter, abusive and resentful women.   A cunt of the highest order.  I put it off to sexual frustration or latent unresolved lesbianism, take your pick.  Whatever it was, this women was evil, and she disliked boys with a particularly poisonous venom.  I'm sure it was because we had a penis and she didn't.     Because of her unusually brutal personality, and inherent desire and pleasure in abusing children, she had all the bad actors and troubled boys, and a few of the "good girls" in her home room.  She took great enjoyment in breaking such boys and turning them into the neutered mush we see all the time.    But as committed as she was to breaking us, we were as committed to fighting her every step of the way.  We were destined to win,  given there were more of us, and we had youth on our side; and remember, she would only have us for one year.    Sometimes the victories were short lived and symbolic, but they were victories all the same, and the taste was oh, so sweet.  I still feel warmth when I think of all the problems and anxiety I caused her, I can only hope I shortened her ugly and misguided life.   I hated her, but her actions made that a forgone conclusion; she hated me, a great compliment; we were a match made in hell.  Let the games begin.
      Fast forward to close of the school year,  mid May.  The weather was warming, my loins were priming, the sirens call of summer was wafting through the air, and I was overcome by its voice, it was all I could hear.  This spring was different, I was 13, exploding, curious, and excited, and girls had suddenly become very important to me.   Why, I had no idea, but I pursued that notion with a single minded focus.   The natural romantic in me, swelled and burst forward that year, accompanied by the constant inflammation of overpowering sexual stirrings that consumed and confused me beyond reason.   I was enchanted and dazed by girls, totally hypnotized.   They were so different; smaller, petite, delicate;  softer, so much softer, and so pretty.  They did so many unusual, odd, and funny things.  Enigmatic, incomprehensible, ethereal, emotional,  enticing, bewitching, and  terrifying.  They were creatures born of a different world,  I was consumed in poetic fascination, and obsessed by the feelings rising within me.  I had discovered the mythic goddess that spring, and acquiesced completely to her captivating power; I was lost and found all in the same moment; and it all felt so strangely right to me.   So curious about touching them, and what that would feel like.  When I did, it was electric, emotionally shocking, a disturbance at the visceral soul, complete psychic upheaval, an earthquake;  rearranged and reordered, everything within me awakened instantaneously.  I saw beauty in all things.  I remember the first time I kissed a girl,  my nerve endings seemed to ignite and vibrate with a spiritual and creative energy.  The sexual self emerged, burst open uncontrollably; strong, vigorous, excited, virile, immortal.   I was literally on fire, body and soul set ablaze.   My whole being was involved.  I joined the cosmos and felt all its wonder, potency and supremacy;  suspended in awe, fully conscious and aware, feeling the extraordinary power of being alive and completely consumed in that one moment, riding atop the crest of penultimate human experience.  As I walked in Heaven,  I heard the music of eternity, sung by the angels, just for me.  I felt the unmistakable and undeniable presence of God.  I was sanctified.   It all was so innocently tender and sweetly profound, and incomprehensibly beautiful.   I had been scorched by the celestial flame of sacred sexual communion, and was forever changed.  I was in love; I was love.   Just to be close to girls was sexually arousing to me.  I loved what I saw and what I felt.  Their bodies were so inherently and intrinsically beautiful; shapely, curvy, longer haired, pampered, flawless, round and perfect, with an unmistakable and irresistible scent.  Once I smelled that unique combination of soap,  sweat, perfume, and estrogen mixed in the perfect recipe, each spice intensifying and adding flavor to the other, I was overwhelmed from then on, and still am.   In those days I fell in love, quickly, deeply and always hopelessly, and I was crushed when that attraction went unrequited.  I could go from excitement and expectation to broken demoralization, covering the full range of emotion almost simultaneously.  I had embarked on a journey through a maze of enigma, mystery, and discovery, the only road map being the instinctual longings of my innocent nature, of which I followed with blind intuitive surrender.  For I knew, it knew, what it was doing.   Feeling for the very first time the ancestral, universal, and primary bond of divine humanness between boy and girl.   That's the real stuff of life right there;  unconstrained nature, hormonal lunacy, pain, curiosity, spiritual ignition, insecurity, hope, loving without guile, risking without thought, brushing the angels, broken, hopeful, uncontrollable excitement, creative awakening, raging desire, awe, dejection, laughing with the gods, fantasy, anguish, expectation, and illusion; a perfect totality.   WOW, that was quite a time; it doesn't get any better than that.   I am so grateful to have experienced that warm and beautiful sweetness, the tender madness of being 13 and coming of age.  It feels like it was yesterday.  Thank you God.
      My mind ran amok with day dreams and fantasies, like a prison short timer, all I could think about was freedom.   All I wanted to do was get the fuck out of there and on to my summer where I could sneak a cigarette or two and look at beautiful air brushed women in America's true periodical of decadence, Playboy.  Those were the days.  It all seemed so simple and real to me.  Kids now have no idea of how exciting and enthralling life can be just sneaking a peak at a tame, idealized, and fanciful magazine while puffing on a Camel.   Today, unless they have I Pods, I Pads, game consoles, etc, they can't be happy.  I feel sorry for the average 13 year old now.  They miss so much simple pleasure by seeking a constant deluge of excitation and volume which inevitably deadens their real senses, requiring more and more to stimulate them.  Electronic cyber junkies.  Tuned in, hooked up, wired to the Internet; instant gratification and entertainment is constant, driving, and never ending.  Without that persistent consumption, they are instantly bored, as if in a vacuum, or filled with a disjointed anxiety searching for any new web drug to get off on.  They are addicted to stimulation and their obsessive need to be fed by the outside world.  They have acquiesced their internal voice and all self direction to the dictates of the media.  The messages require no thought whatsoever to decipher, they don't want them thinking, people who think are dangerous.  Sound, image, sound, image attacking their innocent psyches with a relentless onslaught.  They display the classic symptoms of PTSD.   Wired into Facebook and Twitter, falsifying an intimacy and closeness they don't have with one another.  Obsessively putting inane and simple minded posts on their walls.   Creating a hallow sense of celebrity and fame by being online and seeing their name on a web page where others can see it as well.   Elevating their fragile egos, while temporarily soothing their deep seated insecurities.  Odd, this society now.  The idea of creating fun, or simply doing nothing doesn't occur to them.   Too bad for them, a lot of creativity and living comes from doing nothing.
     So, on this beautiful spring day, Sister Genora assembled all the trouble makers together in order to berate and shame us one last time.  She knew the end game was near, we were about 3 weeks from graduation, she had to act quickly if she was to get that last final lick of abuse in before we would be lost to high school forever.  There was 6 of us boys, they were all my friends;  not one girl was brought up.  I think the group she called forward were a special mix of unbearable angst for her.  We were professionals at making her life miserable and she felt incompetent as a disciplinarian because she couldn't break this crew.  We were just too good at fucking things up and not caring one wit about it.  We were untouchable and uncontrollable;  she couldn't reach us; she couldn't hurts us or work us to her desire; all her methods of coercion and repression were ineffectual against us.  We conquered her that year, and she knew it.  She was a broken women, acting from unconscious rage over her defeat.  She called all of us to the front of the class and exclaimed, "there they are, the ones who have ruined your school year, look at them, look at them."   Upon that cue, we all looked at one another and immediately burst into a laughter.  It was hilarious and we couldn't stop.  We were belly laughing, it came from the depths, right out of our feet, my whole body was involved.   It was so fucking funny.  I still laugh when I think about it.   She became flustered, confused and enraged, on fire at such insolence and disrespect.  Her intention of shaming us had not worked out to her expectation, it all backfired.   She started to beat on us one at a time, all that did was create more insane laughter; it just got funnier and funnier the more she hit us, and it wouldn't subside.  She had had enough.  She dragged me and Teddy Anderson down to the Principles office, an obvious sign that we had beaten her, she needed reinforcements.  That must have been extremely embarrassing to her embittered ego; she couldn't handle us, and now others knew that fact publicly; the word was out, she had lost control of her class; oh, the shame of it.    That says it all, right there.  Why just Teddy and I, and not the others, I'm not sure.  I think she perceived us as the ring leaders of this insurrection and the most troublesome of the 6 boys throughout the entire year.   I'm sure that was it, we were a special breed.  I think she picked the right 2 guys.  We were devilish when it came to fucking with her.  We both hated her with a consummate passion, and we let it be known in a thousand different sneaky ways.  We were good, Teddy and I.    In the parlance of Catholicism, the Principle's office is the pinnacle of fucking up.  We had made it, flush with pride.  We truly were at the top of our games.  Ah sweet troubled youth.
     Now we were in some real shit because Sister Leone, the Principle, was no one to fool with.  She was a nun in the classic sense.  A proud, strong, and beautiful women with great love and compassion, and a true commitment as an educator and clergy member.  She was smart ,quick, and tough but fair minded.  She had a pointed and powerful gaze, that could make your hair stand up, but could soften to a gentle sweetness when she wanted.  A real lady with a real heart.   She carried herself with a particular bearing and class, portending a highly distinct lineage.   She was certainly the best that Catholicism offered, and what all others should have aspired to become.  We were lucky to have her.  She was a wonderful person and a women of solid values and virtues.  She was good friends with my mom and dad.  They would take her and my other favorite gal, my 2nd grade teacher, Sister Seraphina out to dinner and and sneak them drinks, under the table, throughout the meal.  Real people; good souls.   I loved them both very much, and they loved me, and I knew it.   For I was that boy, destructively curious, explosive and expansive, with the beautiful devil within him; not a bad boy, but an insanely mischievous one who found trouble wherever he went.   They could relate to that, I was their kind of boy.  Oh, I forgot to mention, both of these fantastic women were Irish, kindred of the clan.  They intuitively understood and accepted who I was. 
      To be continued:
                                                         Yours in kinship,
                                                                           Mike C.

Spirituality of Loss (AA)

  I have always believed in God, even through the most horrendous experiences I had.  I,  like most others, have said the despairing fox hole prayers in the middle of some incomprehensible insanity that I caused and sought Gods relief to escape from.   So when I walked into my first AA meeting and saw the word "God" in the 3rd step, I thought, ok, that shouldn't be a problem for me.  WOW, was I wrong about that statement.  I had no real idea of what the steps were asking me to do when it came to a belief in God.  I'll just say a prayer, ask for help to stay sober, and go about my business, doing whatever I want.  Because I said a prayer, I've got God on board, everything is as it should be.  The notion that God may want something from me never crossed my mind.  Ah, the arrogance and myopothy of youth.  I didn't realize that sound sobriety required much more in the spiritual than I comprehended.   I had to find a loving God, or design my own conception.  I had to develop a relationship with this God, which required a humility that was nonexistent in my personality.   I had to let this God direct and inform my actions, thoughts, and behaviors; to instill in my heart what He wanted me to do, not what I wanted;  and I had to trust this God, not only with my will, but with my very life.  That's a big task to accomplish; and it is through a process of positive loss and spiritual insight that comes from such loss, that it is acquired.
     It is important to understand the concept of insight through loss.  Humility comes from the same root word as humiliation, and human as well.   They are all closely related.  My humiliation can bring humility and an acceptance of my humanity.  The losses I incurred were of every different kind.  Some financial, some romantic, all based on a want, desire and will that didn't work out for me.  Plain and simple, I didn't get what I wanted, and I had to look at why.   All that loss had one thing in common,  it was designed to show me a fundamental spiritual truth.  They all contained powerful lessons about what I needed to change in my life in order to live more closely to the serenity they talk about.  I really didn't pay much attention to whether I had serenity or not, I  really didn't care.  I was consumed with material and professional success, and trying to make the outside look as good as I possible.   That's why I'm sober, right?  To go and get.   Interestingly, even when I attained that success, I either rejected it or sabotaged it.  When I lost money, position, romantic relationships, and friendships I was being harshly and profoundly informed  about one thing primarily, that I was living without a workable relationship with God; without acceptance or surrender.   That I was driven by an over inflated ego, willfulness, unrealistic desire, self important sense of entitlement, and lack of spiritual connection or true trust in God.  So because God played a secondary function in my life, all things always went badly for me.  There's a statement in AA, that whatever you place in front of your sobriety, you will lose.  I believe whatever you place in front of God, you will also lose.   Again, even if I got what I wanted, it held no real worth or value for me.  The spiritual satisfaction of living life with God as the primary was lost on me as I pushed to continue to create and  adhere to my desires.
      Historically, my reaction to loss was anger, rage and feeling victimized.  I had no idea of life on life's terms; that shit was for you, not me; I'm special.  Life was not to touch me in the way it touched you.  Yet if something happened to you, I would tell you, well that's life; but that didn't apply to me.  Self pity was a rampant emotion for me in those days.  After each loss, I would go into an initial rage and then depression.  I would come out it, shake it off, and arm myself  with a new set of desires and intentions,  reload my will, put my head down and charge onward, again without spiritual assistance or consciousness.    I really was'nt getting it.  Not necessarily hard headed or inherently willful, but deeply afraid.  Though I would pray my way out of emotional extremes, I had not yet made the connection that it was my spiritual attitude where the problems lie.  That God had to reside with me constantly, that I had to bring Him into the very center of my life.   Like being caught on a roller coaster that you can't get off of.  Rarely did I have an emotional even keel.
      See I believe that God is the most easily assessable entity in my life, like oxygen; it's everywhere.   All I have to do is stop and ask.  Nothing more, it is really not that difficult to understand.  It is difficult to do though.  But to get to that place, all those things had to be removed and seen for the reality that they were.  Materials hold no real value, they are just things.  Nice to have, but essentially unnecessary.   They have no ability to make me happy, worse yet, when they are attained and the happiness sought through them is unrealized, then a great emptiness follows, as it should.    Like security, it doesn't exist either.  There is none, and the striving for it makes one more insecure.  Living in the moment, how hard is that?  I found it extraordinarily difficult to live in the moment.  Did you ever think why it is so hard?  Because in the moment, there is only you, God and truth; the truth that through the now is attempting to impart an important belief to me, and I need to listen to it.  Truth when seen, always requires action on that awareness.  Sometimes very difficult and confrontational action is needed.  One main reason why truth is avoided,  because the action required is going to cause a lot of change, adjustment, discomfort, and loss of something I want.  Usually a loss of some cherished mythology that I am living.  Truth strips away the trivial and exposes our denial in stark terms.  Reality is not easy to accept, but denial is impossible to continue to live in.
        How do you find this God? Where is He?  What does he want?  Why me?   I have had a spiritual bent to my personality throughout my life.  But before I sobered up, I thought that life was meaningless, directionless, and an unbelievable painful experience to endure.  A short and agonizing fluke of nature.   If there was a God, well He didn't seem to be around too much.   But when the gift of sobriety was freely given to me, well all those bets were off.  God did exist and He had graced me with this unbelievable gift.  He did care and possibly even loved me.  I had to realign my thinking.  The funny thing about God,  He isn't lost, I am.  There is no place to go to find Him,  He is here residing in my heart;  all I need to do is allow His presence into my consciousness.  It is that simple.  So simple only a child can understand it, and children do.
      God, trust, workability, and allowance all sort happen together.  As I began to get one of them, the others sort of tagged along, a package deal.   The more conscious contact, the deeper the realizations, the better and more acceptable life became, and the better and more secure I felt.  Character defects, are very hard to embrace and handle one at a time.  It is much easier to center myself in God and the influence and power of those defects greatly diminish, naturally.  I took beating after beating psychologically and emotionally over the years because surrender was so difficult for me to do.  Eventually though, I got sick and tired of hurting myself and not getting those wonderful attributes that they talk about in AA.  Surrender got easier to do when I started to realize that God wasn't going to hurt me or deceive me.  The 12 Steps are not some sentence that has been thrust upon me.  The Steps are designed to help me life a fuller, happier, and more productive life.   That's when trust began to happen.  Allowing God was one thing, trusting Him was a completely different thing.  That took some real time.  Pony tail Bob says it took the first 10 years to believe in God, the next 10 years to allow that belief to begin to inform his life, and the next 10 years to trust God.  That's about the schedule I was on.  Just the way it was. 
       What is it about God that is so frightening?  I don't know if it is so much fear as it is the ego belief that  I am god; who needs a God when I already am god.   That's a persistent problem that I had for years.  I have hard time with authority and I had an extremely toxic relationship with my father.  Both of those got in the way finding a loving authority that I could believe in and surrender to.   The real enemy of my spiritual happiness is my ego.  The henchmen it dispatches into my intellect are will, desire, and want.  There seems to be an endless supply of all those.  But if I pay attention to my needs, they are much simpler and fewer in number.  At this moment, what do I really need that I don't have?   I have my daily bread, a place to live, a vehicle to transport, albeit an old vehicle; enough money to get through the month; ok that's covered.  What do I have in the way of spirituality, which is the priority need.   I have a workable, functional and trusting relationship with God; and I know in my heart that I am loved by whatever this entity is.  I have AA, and I still go to a shitload of meetings.  I have loving and caring friends, of which I am also loving and caring towards.  I have a good mind and now an artistic ability to express my deepest emotions.  I have the respect and friendship of my 2 brothers; and I am learning about loving and forgiving myself and others; and learning about living closer to the moment.   Did I miss anything?  And I would ask you, what else is there?   What else matters?    There is a God, and it's not me. I'm glad I finally figured that one out.
                                                  Yours in kinship,
                                                                            Mike C.

More Thoughts (AA)

  -  There are two doors, one marked heaven, the other lecture on heaven; we're all lined up at the lecture
         on heaven.  Cause we're not gonna get there until we figure it out.
  -  "Be Here Now"  great book from the 60's by Baba Ram Dass.
  -  Constant repetition of the obvious.
  -  Coming home to a place he'd never been before.
  -  What's your worst fear?
  -  What's you most protected secret?
  -  It's not money, it's the love of money.
  -  Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
  -  Just show up.
  -  Everyone has the right to be wrong.
  -  Being in pain is one thing, being in the victim is quite another.
  -  Truth resonates with a specific vibration heard only in the space where the still small voice resides.
  -  Sympathy for the Devil
  -  My life is in perfect order and harmony, even though it doesn't make sense to me.
  -  Sought through prayer and meditation, not medication.

  -  Autobiography in Five Chapters:
             1)   I walk down the street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk,
          I fall in.  I'm lost. . . I am hopeless.  It isn't my fault.  It takes me forever to find my way out.
            2)    I walk down the same street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk,
          I pretend I don't see it.  I fall in again.  I can't believe I'm in the same place.  But it isn't my fault.
            3)   I walk down the same street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk,
          I see it is there.  I still fall in. . . it's a habit.  My eyes are open; I know where I am.  It is my fault
          I get out immediately.
            4)  I walk down the same street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I walk around it.
            5)  I walk down a different street.    

  -  You cannot think your way into good living, you can only live your way into good thinking.
  -  Steve Winwood was 15 years old when he played for Spenser Davis Group; how does a 15 year old
         English kid sound like a 40 year old black man?
  -  All present and accounted for.
  -  The only easy day was yesterday.  (Navy Seal Motto)
  -  I'm Ok, you're Ok;  I'm Ok, you're not Ok;  I'm not Ok, you're Ok;  I'm not Ok, you're not Ok.
        which is it?  Transactional analysis.
  -  Ladies and gentlemen,  The Beatles.
  -  Elvis Presley frequently would be watching something on TV that pissed him off so much he would
        shoot his TV set.  For the shit that passes for knowledge and entertainment, it makes all the sense
        in the world to me.   Don't you wish  you could do that some time?
  -  No one here gets out alive.
  -  I'm not sure whether the devil exists, but I'm quite sure that evil does.
  -  If you had my life, you'd drink too.
  -  Get up, Suit up, Show up, and Shut the fuck up.
  -  You're here until you're not, then you're somewhere else.
  -  Tough times don't last, tough people do.
  -  A Course in Miracles claims that a miracle is a "change of perception,"  sounded kind of like a
        cheap miracle to me.  But think about that.  If I have seen and reacted to something the same
        way, over and over, for years, and now I see and react differently, that is miraculous.
  -  Acceptance is the key to all my problems.
  -  Life is about learning how to love and forgive; that's all it is.
  -  Get up;  just keep getting up.
  -  I believe that my desire to please God, does in fact please God.
  -  Truth requires action.  Once seen, the right action is obvious.  Do you have the courage to see.
  -  Grant me the serenity, and the courage to change the things I can.
  -  God isn't lost, I am.   God doesn't go anywhere, I do.
  -  There's no cure for life  (Tony Soprano)
  -  Life is hard, get a helmet or a flack jacket.
  -  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.  Don't here that one much
       these days.  Now, sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will require a lawyer, public
       relations consultant and possibly jail time.
  -  Grown up.
  -  There's no escape from me.
  -  Karate do, Karate don't do, no Karate maybe do.
  -  You don't know what you've, till it's gone.
  -  Youth is truly wasted on the young.
  -  Beauty is wasted on ugly people.
  -  What do you really need that you don't already have right now?
  -  Enlightenment is in the wink of an eye.
  -  You can't ride two horses with one ass.
  -  Taps may be the saddest song ever written.
  -  Stop listening to the news.
  -  Says the patient to his doctor, "Doc, every time I do this it hurts,"   Doc, "don't do that."
  -  Bagpipes:  strange, eerie, dark, haunting, baleful, weeping, sorrowful, consuming, earthy,
         primal, complex, heart breaking;  like the Scottish, and the Irish who invented them.
  -  A leaf falls in the forest; the bear smells it, the deer hears it, the eagle sees it.
  -  If you have never seen the Redwoods or Crater Lake, you need to before you die.
  -  Everyone is either a good example or a good bad example.
  -  Bleed just to know you're alive.
  -  And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.  (Lennon-McCartney)
  -  Fake it till you make it.
  -  We will love you until you love yourself.
  -  You're either busy about livin, or busy about dyin; get busy livin.
  -  A man who cheats on his wife has the economy of screwing 2 women at the same time.
  -  We always seem to be concerned with what we don't have; let's be grateful for what we didn't get.
  -  There's a sucker born every minute.
  -  An eagle can see a fish swimming 10 ft. underneath the water from 10,000 ft. high; almost 2 miles.
  -  Goodwill Hunting, Inherit the Wind, Shaw shank Redemption, Man on Fire, Book of Eli.
  -  Enter The Dragon.
  -  When a codependent gets into a car accident, someone else's life passes in front of his eyes.
  -  God helps those who help themselves.  Don't forget that.
  -  You know, if you worry about something, it won't happen.  Odd superstition
  -  Stay able.
  -  And the great good God looked down on each His loving child; the Christian, Hindu, Muslim and
         Jew, and loved them through the Gods they knew.
  -  Your mind is a vehicle for your soul; once it takes you there, it needs to be abandoned on the roadside. 
  -  AA:  on the job training.
  -  Chaos is an addictive chemical.
  -  Easy to decide, not easy to follow through.
  -  Chinese proverb:  Talk doesn't cook rice.
  -  Thank you God for what you gave me, what you took from me, and what you left me.
  -  Please do me a big favor, don't get in the way of my pain; it's mine and I need it to grow.
  -  Only the shadow knows.
  -  You are becoming what you use to use to despise.
  -  Our primary purpose is to stay sober; our secondary purpose is to help others achieve sobriety.
  -  It is to embark on your journey, and arrive at the place you started, and see it for the first time.
  -  God changes things without changing things.
  -  If I got what I deserved, I certainly wouldn't be here.
  -  These three I need:  the one who loves me, the one who hates me , and the one who is indifferent to me.
         The one who loves me, teaches me compassion; the one who hates me, teaches me caution;  the one
         who's indifferent to me, teaches me independence.
  -  At some point, after all the work, pain, and prayer, I have to be OK!
  -  Just listen.
  -  Picasso painted like a child when he was a child, then he learned how to paint like an adult; it took him
         50 years of reeducation to learn how to paint like a child again.
  -  Become like the child.
  -  The ABCD's of how not to listen:  A) advise/analyze  B) belittle  C) compare  D) deny, diminish, delve.
  -  Step Off:  You will be guided by a great sense of awe; for the river of life in which you venture holds
                     the answer to all your longings, and a deep appreciation and reverence for all things.
  -  For you, the unlikely few who have chosen the path towards truth, welcome home.

  -  "Alas for those who cannot sing, but die with all their music in them." Let us treasure the time we have,
          and resolve to use it well, counting each moment precious; a chance to apprehend some truth,
          to experience some beauty, to conquer some evil, to relieve some suffering, to love and be loved,
          and to achieve something of lasting worth.

  -  I asked God for strength that I might achieve;  I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
   I asked God for help that I might do greater things; I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
     I asked God for riches that I might be happy; I was given poverty that I might be wise.
   I asked God for power that I might have the praise of men;  I was given weakness that I might feel
         the need of God.
   I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;  I was given life that I might enjoy all things
        I got nothing that I asked for, but everything that I hoped for.  Almost despite myself my unspoken
        prayers were answered.  I among all men am most richly blessed.  (Author unknown, circa 1860's)

  -  Step into the fear.
  -  Where in your body do you feel emotion? 
  -  I am not the center of the universe, regardless of what I think.
  -  I am standing on a whale, fishing for minnows.
  -  You cannot make others happy, it is impossible;  make yourself happy, at least one person will be.
  -  Your mind will always respond to your dominant belief.  That's why our greatest fears become true
         because that's what we think about most of the time.  What you are afraid of is a belief whether you
         realize it or not.
  -  Forgiveness is not letting anyone off the hook; it is not forgetting what happened;  it is not something
        you are giving someone else;  you never have to see that person again;  you are not forced to
        associate with them;  they don't have to become your friend;  you are not losing anything;  you are
        not weak if you forgive;  forgiveness has nothing to do with the person you are forgiving, it is a gift
        you are giving yourself. 

  -  To not forgive, and not forget  is bitter;  To not forgive and forget  is unconscious;  To forgive, and
        forget  is naive;   To forgive and never forget is spiritual maturity.
  -  God brought me to AA and AA brought me to God.
   -  Hope is in the future.
  -  God is not some pinch hitter.
  -  Trust in God, clean house, help others.   Pretty simple huh?
  -  The problem with therapy is that people view it as a consumer;  I go, I pay, You give me sanity.
  -  The closest star, outside of the sun, which is a small star by comparison, is Alpha Centuri.  It is
         two and a half light years away.  Two and half light years traveling at 186,000 miles per second.
         That would be 11 million miles in one minute and 669 million miles in one hour.  WOW, can
         you comes close to understanding such a distance?  Or fathom how vast the universe really is?
  -  Where is your joy?
  -  Forgiveness has nothing to do with the person we are forgiving.
  -  Without energy being consistently applied, all things disintegrate into chaos.
  -  God is felt experience, not a thought.
  -  Powerless is nor Helpless.  Compliance is not  Surrender.  Acquiescence is not Acceptance.  Honesty
         is not Truth.   Anger is not Resentment.  Intuition is not Instinct.  Faith is not Trust.  Self worth is not
         Self image.
  -  Serenity is not that all things are going well, serenity is the knowledge that all things are well, regardless
        of how they are going.
  -  I have tried throughout my sobriety to get back to the faith I had the first day I walked in the door.
  -  I'd much rather live in the day; the past holds regret and remorse, the future holds apprehension and fear.
        If I stay in the day, I can avoid them altogether.
  -  AA:  turns a bad "no give a shit," into a good, "no give a shit."
  -  Socialism is great until you run out of other peoples money.
  -  All light resides in the dark.
  -  Never make money for money's sake.
  -  You make your own luck.
  -  Never set aside who you are to be successful.
  -  Find the work you love, and you'll never work a day in your life.
  -  Zelig
  -  Life is so complex, or is it?
  -  The only thing life offer you is an education;  the lessons come everyday;  pay attention.
  -  How can someone do only one 4th step?
  -  There are only 4 conditions of faith I can live under:
        1.  God exist, and I do believe.
        2.  God exists, and I don't believe.
        3.  God doesn't exist, and I do believe.
        4.  God doesn't exist, and I don't believe.      Which one are you?   Pick one.

  -  Yesterday's sobriety won't keep me sober today.
  -  Pink Floyds "Dark Side of the Moon" was #1 on the Billoards top 100 albums for just shy of 10 years.
         The album that displaced Floyd was Michael Jackson's Thriller.
  -  Does God need me?  Is there something He wants from me?  He must need me, I'm still here.
  -  Should I help others at my expense?
  -  Character defects are survival mechanisms that aren't necessary any longer.
  -  There is a category of criminology called victimology.  Sound familiar?
  -  "Spirituality of Imperfection" by Ernie Kurtz
  -  Are you addicted to struggle? 
  -  It's all good.  It's simply a value judgement.
  -  God watches us as we ride the bicycle of life.
  -  The path you choose must have heart, else it is useless.
  -  2 interesting psychological pathologies are 1)  fallacy of fairness, and 2)  fallacy of control
  -  If the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, then you will see all things as a nail.
  -  Lessons taught, till lessons learned.
  -  Watch your sense of superiority that comes with helping others and watch your need to have them
         weak.
  -  Nothing is certain.  Security does not exist. 
  -  God is not out there; God is in here.
  -  When Aldous Huxley knew he was dying, he suggested that they cut off his head and keep it alive
        and he would tell them what it felt like.  How's that for a philosophical pioneer. 
  -  Say yes; yes to all of it.
  -  The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.   (Wilde)
  -  The Cloud of Unknowing
  -  The only way out is through.
  -  Control is an illusion.
  -  Death is a beginning.
  -  Detach with love.
  -  Made a decision, over and over and over and over again.
  -  The older I get, the greater I was.
  -  It's never too late to be what you could have been.
  -  You do what you do, you get what you get.
  -  In the 1950's, which artist sold more records than Elvis?  Believe it or not, Pat Boone!!!
  -  Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
         measure.  It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves who am I
         to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child
         of God.  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about
         shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We were born to make manifest
         the glory of God that is within us.  It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.  And as we let
         our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we
         are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.  (Nelson Mandela)

  -  If you hold a real weapon in your hand, you will feel its character strongly.  It begs to be used.  It
        is fearsome.  Its only purpose is death, and its power is not just in the material from which it is
        made, but also from the intention of its makers.  It is regrettable that weapons must sometime
        be used, but occasionally, survival demands it.  The wise go forth with weapons only as a last
        resort.  They never rejoice in the skill of weapons, nor do they glorify war.  When death, pain,
        and destruction are visited upon what you hold to be most sacred, the spiritual price is
        devastating.  What hurts more than one's own suffering is bearing witness to the suffering of
        others.  The regret of seeing human beings at their worst and the sheer pain of not being able
        to help the victims, can never be redeemed.  If you go personally to war, you cross the line
        yourself.  You sacrifice ideals for survival and the fury of killing.  That alters you forever.  That is
        why no one rushes to be a soldier.  Think before you want to change so unalterably.  The stakes
        are not merely one's life, but one's very humanity.  (Thoughts of War: Deng Ming-Dao) 
        5000 years before Christ.

Middle Class (Art)

  I have chewed on this idea for a long time.  I had some discussions today with someone who grew up in the same type of home I did, in the same neighborhood.  I grew up in a very affluent area outside of Chicago.  Everything you could want was available, but nothing you really needed.  It is eye opening how much leeway and excuse we will make for people with money and power.   How wealth insulates, coddles, shields and protects the people who have it.  The most vile and despicable actions can, and do occur,  in those homes and goes completely undetected and unpunished.  How living in those environments shadows and effects all perception of self and blocks any real truth from illumination.  How it mangles and destroys all who live in its domain.  I like the image that the family pain is like an elephant in the living room, that everyone simply steps around, adjusts to, and takes no notice of.    In fact, after awhile, they really don't notice it, the denial so conditioned and deadening to their senses.  The elephant is comprised of various obscene violations .  Alcoholism, incest, verbal abuse, perfectionism, high expectation, drug addiction, corruption, physical violence, and sexual deviancy.  There is usually a lethal combination of these injuries present.  Sexual abuse and incest are by far the most lasting, egregious and pernicious, and become the most closely held and jealously guarded of them all.  What ever it is, it all becomes the family secret that everyone knows but never, ever mentions openly, especially if the perpetrator of those crimes is still alive, and in the home.  The secret is protected at all cost, the shame, just too painful to reveal.   You can never see what you see.  It becomes the sacred cow that meanders over and through, trampling and shitting on everything and everyone without regard.  The family dutifully cleans up the mess and forgets anything ever happened, no matter how horrendous the damage.  It all must remain underground, pushed deep, suppressed and locked away.   These are the dwellings where reactive violence and abuse is commonplace by all inhabitants.  Always ready for any targets of opportunity; quick release, mercurial and arbitrary.  Makes sense doesn't it?  Everyone is sitting on a time bomb of pain, hurt and denial, where else can it go but outward?  Interestingly, the violence is usually never directed at the perpetrator, but only at the innocent.   Protect the cause of  the pain, another strange characteristic of the secret.   Here, you will also find a fetid witches brew of vulgar judgement and vicious character assassination.   You see, shame always has to be ejected and the bitter criticism of others does just that.   It lasts only temporarily, spends quickly and must be reloaded constantly.   Like a line of cocaine, short lived, but addictive in its euphoric oblivion and release.  It's a feeding frenzy of hate,  nutritional only to the twisted heart.   These are the homes where all poisonous gossip is conjured, nurtured, and expectorated into the local pipeline.  Those who bring in any destructive tidbits to the family can earn more attention and elevation depending upon how incriminating the gossip is.  It becomes a familial currency for purchasing favor.  You see, this is all designed to accomplish one thing, to defocus shame and truth away from self towards others.  Like clothing caught fire, it must be removed immediately.  It's constant, smoke and mirrors; deflection and obfuscation; don't look behind the curtain; avoid, deny, repress;  like a race track shell game.  It's here, no over here, no here.  You'll never be able to find the stone.    If you go into such a home, they will  teach you right away how to avoid and deny as they do.   You will be issued your own set of rose colored glasses, specially fitted for this family.   If you happen to have the temerity to openly notice the pain, then believe me, that's the last time they'll invite you over.  They only accept co conspirators in their purposeful deception.  That would be people who have the same elephant in their living rooms. 
     The secret has to be maintained from conscious awareness.  It holds all the family shame and guilt associated with those injustices.  It also acts to intimidate anyone from recognition.  The fear being that if I see my true pain, I will not be able to survive. That's what the wound tells us, and we believe it.   What happens in a secret family is that the shame gets distributed amongst all the children;  all react to it in their own unique ways.  No one escapes.  Shame runs downhill, hitting the younger children with more ferocity, as the older children release theirs upon the powerless and weaker.  Most will continue to deny their truth for the rest of their lives.   What is sad about that, is they create their own families burdened with the heavy unconscious pain they carry.  Instilling that hidden wound within their unsuspecting offspring; and on and on and on.   Living in this unresolved situation, they will most assuredly act out their avoidance in some pathological way; it is inevitable.   To many, the result is to find solace in some form of addiction, or act out in a manner similar to the perpetrator.  This is the fertile ground for chemical attraction.  All family members will carry the load of shame, no matter how long they have been out of the home, or how far away they are from their origins.  If moving far away would release the pain of childhood, we would all be living in Australia.
      The family knows its aberration and must conceal it, first, from themselves, and second, from the world of others.  This becomes the overriding commandment, and it forces all members into an intricate, convoluted, and extremely dishonest way of life.   But there is a problem.  Not everyone wants to conceal the truth.  There always seems to be one or two who choose not to live the family lie.  They are unwilling to deny, or worse yet, intentionally take that truth and share it with someone, outside the home.  They know it has to be exposed.   This child senses that the suppression of truth is dangerous, and feels compelled to release it.   Usually the more sensitive, philosophical and spiritual,  it's about survival for them;  they cannot adhere to lies and hypocrisy;  it is counter to their natures.  These children perceive and feel at a much deeper level than the rest of the family.  The artists.   I believe they intuitively know their souls are in jeopardy, and act instinctively to protect their sanity.   Thank God.  There always seems to be one in every family that refuses to be oppressed. 
      Once the secret is revealed publicly, the line has been breached.  Now the family unit heeds the call to action.  The gates are being stormed.  Protection of the family secret must be maintained.  Protection of our own avoidance is paramount.  All precautions must be taken.  The family will coordinate and organize a battle plan, imbued with vengeance and instituted with evangelical zeal.  Terror propelled behavior.  For we all have much to lose.  Reaction is swift, unrelenting, and committed in its application.  The rebel becomes the object of unbridled scorn, criticism, and disdain.  Kill the messenger.  The secret is out, where, they have no idea.  A public relations campaign is planned and instituted against the rebellion.   Complete rejection of the fact that the truth needs exposure, the family chooses instead to reject the child who brings such awareness.  He or she becomes the object of ridicule by the other children to anyone they believe may be infected with knowledge of their cherished shame.  The idea is to poison the minds of those who may have heard the truth by dirtying the character of the insurrectionist.  The sensitive child is most times different than other children.  They see and feel life uniquely; sometimes oddly.  They may be more anti-social or introverted than the others.  That makes it easier to convince outsiders that there is something fundamentally wrong with them.  They become an outcast to the family and anywhere it has influence.   One clever strategy is to impart to others the question of the child's sanity.  Be careful, we think he's crazy.  Oddly enough, most children who receive this kind of pressure, usually become extremely troubled, and it puts there sanity in jeopardy.  They begin to question the voracity of the secret to themselves.  Suicide becomes an attractive alternative to some as the isolation becomes unbearable.  Those who attempt it are almost always successful in these types of situations.  Makes sense, it is not a cry for help but an act of resignation and final demoralization.  Everyone they love has abandoned them, or hates them.   They would all be better off without me.  You could surmise that the pressure was intended to do just that.  Certainly if you're dead, you can't speak any longer.  That solves a lot a problems in one consummate decision.  We can all safely go back to sleep now.  Think about the vile nature of the attacks against them and who's doing it.   Could you endure that kind of treatment?   It takes an unusually strong mind to withstand the onslaught.   They amass a group of the like minded to keep the charade alive and prospering.  It spreads like wild fire.  It seems an odd human trait to want to join in the character destruction of someone else, but understandable, given the fact that most people carry deep unconscious shame themselves and need a ready target to release it upon.  It's natural for them.  Their inability to see and open their own shame causes them to isolate and attempt to destroy the one who won't be quiet.  The only one with true integrity and courage.  Imagine how lonely it feels to be that child!
     Do you understand that these family members are doing this to one of their own brothers or sisters?  Do you understand the narcissistic terror that must drive someone to attack their blood, in order to stay unaware and hide their own shame from themselves?    Do you understand how powerful and pernicious the wounds we all carry can be to ourselves and the people we love?  Do you understand that unless they are exposed, you can never find any contentment or wholeness?    Do you understand the depth of sickness that such people must carry in order to act this way against their kin?   How gutless, weak,  flaccid, and disgusting; such cowardice, a complete turpitude.  It's stunningly caustic and morally acidic.   A poison of the highest order.  It makes me want to vomit when I think about it.
      Truth cannot be stopped;  it can be avoided, denied, soft sold, repressed, reflected or obscured in any number of ways; but be aware, it cannot be stopped.  Truth carries an overarching need to be exposed, expressed, and openly seen for what it is.  That's what truth does.  That's what truth is.  That's why people hate it, and avoid it at all cost.  That's the imperative it carries, it must be recognized.  Truth has enormous power and emanates its intensive energy, inexorably.  It festers, nips, bothers, gnaws, bites, troubles, preoccupies, charges, ignites, infiltrates, nightmares, scratches, radiates and confronts the avoider in a hundred different ways, at a hundred different times.  It becomes completely untenable to ignore.  That's how it works; it will never let you go, it will never let you up, it will never let you off the hook, it will never give you any relief until it is faced and its voice is heard.  So go ahead, keep running.  It is stronger than you can imagine.  It will hunt you,  and run you down,  like the tireless hound that it is.   For this is Gods messenger, and he will be heeded.
     These people are not monsters, but are people controlled and acting from a deep terror,  unconsciously listening to the instructions ordered from their shame.  We all know how dangerous a cornered and panicked animal can be.  That's a good image to keep in mind.   To the world outside, they all appear to be normal, without serious blemish.  See them gather and engage one another, it all looks fine.  They tell the same stories and laugh the same laugh, but the stories are scripted to give a specific impression to the world, and never touch any real truth.  They all wink at their duplicity while they spin a mythological yarn of normalcy.  They appear to be loving and intimate, bonded with one another in a closeness.  But the bond is held by the secret and cemented by their adherence to denial.   In this situation there is no true intimacy, there can't be; for intimacy is honesty.  Like a band of thieves, huddled and isolated; hold up in anxious expectation.  The stories always told over numerous and sundry cocktails.  For the communal  pain requires the communal remedy, alcohol.  Many, most are functional alcoholics.  The magic elixir for all avoidance, the ultimate potion of suppression.  They are the average American family; happy and successful.  They live in beautiful, coiffed, and immaculate homes.  They all drive luxury automobiles and take exotic and expensive vacations.  Their kids, living in the same untruth, attend the best colleges; 4.0 expected.   The shame is taken into the world veiled under the pretense of perfection and success.  All compulsive perfectionism is always driven by shame and its need to remain hidden.   How could there be anything wrong with us?  Look at what I have.  Many act as pillars within their respective churches, a dead give away.  It all looks so good.   Aren't we better than everyone else?  Who wouldn't want to be us?
      They all take their shame out into the world and pour it on others.   Can't stand any criticism.  Can dish it out, but can't take it.  Typical  Bullies.  Ive seen this type of home my whole life.  It is a place of shame and unreality hidden behind power, wealth and entitlement.  Nicely insulated from accountability.   For money is god and worshipped with complete acquiescence and abdication.  Everything conspires to support the same perpetration and hide the same depravity.  The schools, clubs, social networks, churches,  police and local government all consort and approve the deification of the wealthy, and the purposeful ignorance of its wicked actions.   The general acceptance of this counterfeit  impression adds the veneer of legitimacy and protection to all who reside there.   It is a sham, scam and a sickening hypocrisy.  I've witnessed and experienced the most destructive actions by such people and they were never called to account.  You know, I respect a professional criminal more, because he knows who, and what he is.  He lives a strange kind of honesty, in that he presents no false image of himself to the world.  There is an unusually odd integrity in such a person.  These are ugly, ugly places.  No matter how beautiful their homes, how much meaningless acclaim they have garnered or how much bounty they have plundered, they all live in spiritual emptiness and deprived squalor.  Starved for the real wealth and beauty that life offers those who adhere to the truth, and those who have the courage to uncover their own.  For those who have taken this unlikely and painful observance to the truth,  I salute you, and honor your hearts.  For you are a brave and heroic lot.  Always keep in mind that God smiles on the courageous.  Be well.
                                                               Yours in kinship,
                                                                                            Mike C.

Just a Thought (AA-sort of)

  -  God never promised life would be easy, only worthwhile.
  -  My inability to articulate my needs and wants to you, makes me resent you and loath myself.
  -  Our problems are never about someone else.
  -  There is no reality out there, only a reality in here, projected out there.
  -  Expectation is a resentment waiting to happen.
  -  Children feel everything, at all times.
  -  You either deal with the wound or the wound deals you.
  -  You cannot make me do anything; no one can.
  -  In order for you to betray me, I have to first betray myself.
  -  We do someone a great disservice when we do for them what they could, and should do for themselves.
  -  There is no God to find, only a God to allow.
  -  Did you know that about 50% of the world is looking for fresh water to drink and food to eat.  Please
        remember that the next time you go to the grocery store. We are rich beyond belief; be grateful for that,
        don't feel guilty about it. 
  -  If you cannot find yourself where you are right now, then where are you going to go to look for you?
  -  God's Will shall never take you to a place where God's Grace will not sustain you.
  -  Be yourself, cause everyone else is already taken.
  -  70% of the world cannot read.
  -  Even a broken mirror can reflect the truth.
  -  I don't see the world as it is, I see the world as I am.
  -  There is a God and it ain't you.
  - The God I seek is in the pain I avoid.
  -  You cannot convince me of anything without me allowing you to do it. 
  -  I can't trust, because I believe that if you betray me, I won't be able to take care of myself.
  -  Love your neighbor as yourself; the problem is, that is exactly what we do.
  -  How can I love you when I don't love me?
  -  If you want to see how power corrupts, just watch a school crossing guard; then multiply that by
         ten thousand.
  -  Sober alcoholics do not display any more psychiatric disorders than the general population.  See I told
         you we weren't  crazy.
  -  How can I miss you if you don't leave? (Cyrus)
  -  Perfect is the enemy of the good.
  -  I drove by the cemetery a few days ago and all the headstones had the same inscription: "I was only
         trying to help."
  -  1 million people will die this week worldwide.  Be glad you are not one of them.
  -  Remember:  No good deed goes unpunished.
  -  Ego is the enemy to all spirituality.
  -  Humility usually comes through humiliation; Gods way of telling us we need to pay attention.
  -  What's your greatest secret?
  -  When I didn't know better, I couldn't do better.  Now I know better, I can do better.
  -  The alcoholic:  a failed mystic.  beautiful description.
  -  Why is getting what you want so damn important?  What will that do for you if you do get what you
         want?  Why is being right so important?  What does that mean to you?  What do you risk by being
         wrong?  What's at stake?
  -  Actions speak louder than words. 
  -  I've never heard someone talk so much and say so little
  -  Sponsors must have an inordinate amount of humility to do it correctly.  Given the alcoholics natural
           ego inclination to control and manipulate added to his insecure need for approval and deification,
           a vulnerable and naive newcomer is a ripe target for any dishonest sponsor who lacks true
           humility.  A sponsor can gain humility if they admit that they are benefiting as much as the newcomer.
  -  Whoa to the man whose mind quickly grasps what his heart fails to see.
  -  The journey is not outward to another place, it is inward to the center of yourself.
  -  Why is it so easy to see others faults, and so hard to see my own?
  -  The difference between truth and fiction is that fiction has to make sense.
  -  The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking; simple enough.
  -  The problem with life is that there is no one to blame it on.
  -  Don't do as I do, do as I say.
  -  Cicero Frank use to say, "once I realized that God loved me, what else mattered."
  -  Every person is a mirror.
  -  Gain, loss / have, have not / win, loose / success, failure / out, in  are all the same.  To live in duality is
         to constantly live in judgement and anxiety.
  -  Every problem is a spiritual problem.
  -  It seems that there is a 5 year cycle in AA.  If you notice many people drink around the 5, 10, and 15
         year mark; some even at 20.  Ouch!
  -  Why is it that little girls are rarely diagnosed with ADD or ADHD.  Just a question.
  -  If not you, then who;  if not now, then when?
  -  Why should anyone listen to me?  Not because I've done everything right, but because I've done every-
         thing wrong.
  -  It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
  -   How is it that we spend countless hours in study, education, and research on our careers, but
         can't seem to find 5 extra minutes to pray?
  -  The 4 absolutes are what drove Bill Wilson out of the Oxford Group.  Keep
         that in mind.                                    
  -  People don't want truth, they want comfort.
  -  The search for God, Self, and Truth are all the same thing.
  -  The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.
  -  How is it that I know how to care for you, but have no idea of how to care for me?
  -  Emotional sobriety is just that.
  -  The pain you carry will not get better by avoiding it, it will only get worse.
  -  How often does your entire family sit down to a meal together?
  -  I'm not looking for answers, I'm looking for better questions.
  -  Your head can only think, it cannot feel. 
  -  A man who brags about the greatness of his mind is like a convict who brags about the size of his
         prison cell.
  -  There are no absolutes.
  -  Do you realize how fortunate we are in America that we can turn on a faucet anywhere and safely
        drink that water.  Flush a toilet, and that water will never mix with our drinking water.
        Try that in India where the Ganges River is the source of drinking, cooking, and bathing as well as the
        depository of human and animal waste.  Can you imagine how physically sick these people are because
        of that!
  -   Remember that no matter what anniversary you are celebrating today in AA,  it is always a
         very dangerous time.
  -  For all us born beneath an angry star, as we forget how fragile we are. (Sting)
  -  What am I repressing, denying, or avoiding today?
  -  A priest friend of mine always asks 2 questions after someone has slipped: When did you
         stop going to meetings?  and What are you hiding?  I like that.                   
  -  I am my choices, that's all I am.  How do I make better ones?
  -  The only failure in life is living without risk.
  -  The US Government borrows 5 billion dollars a day.
  -  There's no place to go, you're already there;  There is no God to find, He's already here.  There's
         nothing to do, it's already done; there's nothing to become you already are.  Just stop looking and it will all catch up with you.
  -  The most spiritually profound things are said by the newcomer because he has no idea what he is
        talking about.
  -  I'm always better off if I don't plan anything.
  -  You are where you're at, and don't need to be anywhere else.
  -  Why is the moment so hard to live in?  Because in it,  I'm there with me.
  -  If we are all the same, then why are we always categorized by our differences?
  -  Follow the man who seeks the truth, beware the man who has found it.
  -  The key to happiness lies in the reason for your unhappiness.
  -  When the pain of staying still becomes greater than the pain of moving, you'll move.
  -  A cat will only sit on a hot stove once;  but he will never sit on a cold one either
  -  If you want love, be more loving
  -  I can only acquire what I am willing to give up.
  -  In order to attain something you desire, don't desire it.
  -  You want to talk the talk, you better walk the walk.
  -  Where you going so fast?  and  Why are you going so fast?
  -  Alcoholic pilot over the intercom:  I have no idea where we're going, but we sure are makin good time.
  -  It was the atheist who suggested to Bill Wilson, "why don't you say, God as you understood Him."
  -  I can't give you something I don't have.
  -  God will do for me what I can't do for myself; I only need to let Him.
  -  The promises, are just that.
  -  What we admire in another are the same qualities we ourselves possess.
  -  What we resent in others are the same qualities we possess, but are unwilling to be aware of them.
  -  Restore to sanity means that at one point, I was sane.  Huh.
  -  The victim,  like misery, always needs a susceptible audience.
  -  When America deserted Viet Nam, we abandoned what constituted the 3rd largest military power in the
         world at that time;  we just left it there.  Stunning huh?
  -  All prejudice is an attempt to remove our self hate and place it onto another.
  -  Everything I need for complete spiritual fulfillment is available to me at this very moment.
  -  If you want to see, then look.
  -  It is, and it ain't no iser.
  -  Life is difficult; compared to what?
  -  When I was in Viet Nam, I could get a cold bottle of coke a cola almost anywhere in the villages. Weird.
  -  What comes from the heart, reaches the heart;  what comes from the head reaches nowhere.
  -  The intellect is the enemy of all true awareness.
  -  1% of the population of the world owns a computer or has a college degree; 1%!
  -  Sin boldly.
  -  Pain:  the touchstone of all spiritual progress.
  -  Character is what you do when no one is looking.
  -  What part of no don't you understand?
  -  AA recovers your heart through your head.
  -  Do you realize how fortunate you are that you no longer have to drink?
  -  Just for today.
  -  My life could never have been purchased, only experienced.
  -  Yin / Yang
  -  AA: a place where redemption is found in damnation; where truth is found in lies;  where communion
       is found in isolation;  where self is found in others; where faith is found in disbelief; where beauty is
       found in the disfigured;  where life is found in death;  where God is found in the sinner.  Amazing isn't it?
  -  The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is indifference.
  -  The mind sees only what it's told, the heart sees everything else.
  -  There is no security, but there can be serenity.
  -  If you leave the house and run into three assholes, you can be assured, you're the asshole.
  -  If you don't pray on your hands and knees then I think you have a problem with who's who in the
         relationship.
  -  If you are having trouble staying sober, I think you might want to take a look at your drinking
  -  Nothing will ensure continued sobriety more than working with others.
  -  Nothing will ensure continued sobriety more than not drinking.
  -  Every problem I encounter has one overriding characteristic, I happen to be there for it.
  -  There are no problems, only spiritual opportunities.
   - There are no problems, only solutions.
  -  How can two people look at the very same situation and see two entirely different things?
  -  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
  -  I'm not much, but I'm all I think about.
  -  There is no constant or steady state in life, that's why there is no place to go, it's already gone.
  -  To try to hold onto anything is futile.
  -  Buddhist Monk was asked, what do you do?  I sit at the river bank, selling water.
  -  To meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposter's just the same (Kipling)
  -  Character more easily kept than recovered.
  -  Sometimes you find your destiny on the road you took to avoid it.
  -  500 million people are close to death by starvation and malnutrition at this very moment.  Be grateful.
  -  Why do people cry when they experience overwhelming beauty?  Cause one day they know they
            won't be here to see it.
  -  Truth requires action.
  -  How come there is always traffic whenever I get on the road?
  -  Crater Lake was secret to the Indian tribe in that area; only the chief and medicine man knew of its
        location;  it was considered to be such powerful visual medicine that only they could be trusted with
        its whereabouts.
  -  You think it would be easier for us to change, because we are doing it all the time.
  -  Famous Greek director was asked if he ever had any problems with people throughout his long career;
         he answered "only the people I helped."
  -  Hardships don't create character, they reveal it.
  -  Today, no matter what your situation, if you have food, clothes, a roof, and a bed to sleep in,
         you are luckier than 75% of the worlds people. 
  -  Aren't you just tired of thinking about yourself?
  -  4% of the population are sociopaths.  Scary huh?
  -  Freedom isn't free.
  -  AA is the greatest humanitarian movement ever created.  It took Gods vast power and put it in the hands
         of the weak, failed, broken, and fragile; and we intuitively knew what to do with it.  Unbelievable.
  -  Bill and Bob, a more unusual odd couple could never be imagined.  Thank God each was who he was.
  -  Life is filled with pain, sorrow and disappointment; and over all too soon.
  -  Why do the Irish party so enthusiastically at funerals?  They're glad its not them.
  -  Why do grandparents and grandchildren get along so well?  They have a common enemy.
  -  How come you feel that you have to go anywhere?
  -  The destruction caused in an alcoholic family touches all things, and all people, and all generations.  It
         needs to stop now.
  -  If I always know the right thing to do, why is it so damn hard to do it?
  -  AA, Accountability in Action
  -  Why be considerate of the neighbors and be cruel to each other?
  -  If God is loving, why do we hate each other so much?
  -  If God is loving, why do we hate ourselves so much?
  -  God has trouble with religion.
  -  If someone hears you criticize the corpse at an Irish wake, they will chide you with "don't speak ill of
        the dead."  I guess you can only speak ill of the living. 
  -  My brother is a cardiologist and he put a pace maker in one of his 78 year old patients.  After it was
        inserted, his 80 year old wife came in and asked if it was ok to "chaka chaka" when they got home.
        When she left, the man turned to my brother and said, "my wife is so sexy."  How's that for sweet.
  -  Our differences may define us, but it is our similarities that unite us.
  -  We are all warriors in the spirit.
  -  Courage is not action in the absence of fear, courage is action in spite of fear.
  -  3 billion people, yes billion, cannot worship in the church of their choice without fear of being attacked
         or killed.  Think of that this Sunday.
  -  After dropping the 2 atomic bombs on Japan, they were warned that the next one would be on Tokyo.
         That forced the surrender and ended the war.  We didn't have a third bomb.  One of the greatest
          bluffs in human history. 
  -  If only everyone just swept in front of their own doors, wouldn't the world be a clean place.
  -  AA, a free organization whose members have paid the highest initiation fee ever charged.
  -  Pray for potatos, pick up a hoe.
  -  You want spirituality, get a job.
  -  Dare to be present today.
  -  There is no tomorrow.
  -  Wake up.
  -  Don't look to the future, we'll all be dead.
  - The truth is so obvious as to be completely overlooked.
  -  I am eternally grateful for the special group of men who gave up their tomorrows, so that we could
        have our today's.  Please remember the soldier.
  -  Where ever you go, there you are.
  -  The Hindus believe there is only one sin, desire.
  -  Dr Bob was a proctologist by profession.  When his friends heard he had quit drinking and was
        working with alcoholics, they declared, "It's nice to see he's still working with a bunch of assholes."
  -  I was at my sponsors office one day and a mutual friend of ours was just leaving.  I said, "boy, that
         guys gotta good life, huh?"  My sponsor answered, "Yea, and he knows it."
  -  We are all in the departure lounge.
  -  I may not be where I want to be, but I'm exactly where I've chosen to be.  OUCH!
  -  Everything God made has a crack in it.
  -  The Chinese believe that all things come out of the void, a place of  active creative nothingness.  Different.
  -  It is flattering to think that the God who made all the universe, took the time to make me.
  -  We were perfect when we were born, then we met our parents.
  -  If there is one women out there for you, it'll be guaranteed you won't find her.
  -  I have never been married because I believe in it.
  -  Why is the truth so difficult to accept?  Because once I see it, I can no longer claim ignorance.
  -  AA:  where can you get this kind of entertainment for only 2 bucks?
  -  Pain is just that.
  -  As much empathy as I have for those who slip, I'm always glad it's not me.
  -  Acceptance is the key to all my problems.
  -  I can only help you if you need help, want help, and ask for help; then I can only help you help yourself.
  -  How come I will do things for you that I would never do for me?
  -  How do you accept something?  You surrender to the truth it presents to you.
  -  Have you ever noticed that the guy in the room who is in the most crisis is the guy with 20+ years.
  -  I can't give it to you, but I can help you get it.
  -  USMC:  Uncle Sam's Misguided Children.
  -  I avoid myself by helping you.
  -  Can I give up what I need to, in order to find what I have to?
  -  Pride commeth before the fall.
  -  Ego maniac with an inferiority complex.
  -  An alcoholic is the person who can lie in the gutter and look down on someone.
  -  Who is more important to me than me?  I have been with me every moment.  I will be here until the
         end.  If I don't learn to take care of me, then who will.
  -  GOD:  Group of Drunks; Good orderly Direction; and my favorite, Gift of Despair.
  -  Alcohol wants me drunk, but it will settle for me being miserable.
  -  Alcohol wants me dead, I have the right to defend myself.
  -  We're all in this together, by ourselves.
  -  The answer to our lives is in the place where we least desire to look.
  -  Be yourself, no matter what they say.
  -  You only have one job in life, to be the best you you can be.
  -  When you look in the mirror, isn't it unsettling that there is someone looking back at you?
  -  Get use to eating humble pie; after awhile it doesn't taste half bad.
  -  I don't make many commitments because I believe in them.
  -  As long as you hurt me less than I hurt myself, I'll never notice.
  -  5 answers to prayer: 1) yes  2) no  3) wait  4) you've got to be kidding me; and my most very favorite
        of the whole bunch;  5) ok, but you're not going to like it.
  -  6% of the population hold 59% of the wealth worldwide;  all of them are here in the US.  WOW!
  -  Stop asking for things because you'll get em.
  -  Victims only victimize themselves.
  -  I help you (Rescuer), you don't appreciate me (Victim), I feel compelled to retaliate (Perpetrator); the
         cycle repeats over and over driven by need and shame.
  -  Truth hurts.
  -  We are always unconsciously telling people how to treat us.
  -  I have always been a sucker for beauty. 
  -  Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
  -  I only have one soul to save, that's my own.
  -  Throughout your sobriety you will step over many bodies, don't lie down with them.  (Ponytail Bob)
  -  You can't sell AA to anyone, he's already purchased it from God.
  -  God sees in private, but rewards openly.
  -  Guilt is what I feel when I do something wrong; shame is my identity as a person.
  -  The last thing I usually call on for help is the most powerful thing I could do for myself, pray.
  -  How many times do I have to forgive my brother?  7 times 70.
  -  Why do parents only talk to their kids when something is wrong?
  -  If parents think they are hiding anything from their kids awareness, they are sadly mistaken.
  -  All wholeness lies in our brokenness.
  -  I'm always awed by the fact that PHD's can't figure out a foolproof way to lock a gate against the
        mind and creativity of any average 5 year old.  It's funny isn't it? 
  -  To gain the kingdom of heaven, become like the child
  -  Where do you spend the most effort?  Why?
  -  Bogart was heard to say, "the only reason to have money was to tell some big shot to go screw himself."
  -  Why do we care about the people in Hollywood?  How is it that we think that their lives are more
         important than our own?  How could that be?
  -  Who the hell is Oprah anyway?  Why would she know what's good for you?
  -  Ought to be easy, ought to be simple enough; man meets a women and they fall in love; but the house is
         haunted and the ride gets rough; got to learn to live with what you can't rise above;  as we ride down
         baby into the tunnel of love. (Springsteen)
  -  I'm not who I should be, I'm not who I ought to be, I'm not who I could be, but thank God, I'm not
          who I use to be.
  -  Be careful what you do, reaction follows all action.
  -  Let life be.
  -  Go ahead, jump.
  -  If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride;  if wishes were watches, I'd wear one by my side.
  -  If my aunt had nuts, she'd be my uncle.
  -  Attraction not promotion.
  -  Who in God's name buys anything from the Home Shopping Network?  Why?
  -  Wall Mart brings in $36 million dollars an hour which translates into $22 thousand dollars a minute
           in profit.
  -  I'm lookin for the daughter of the devil himself, I'm lookin for an angel in white; I'm lookin for a women
        who's a little of both, I can feel her but she's nowhere in sight. (Eagles)
  -  During the siege of Berlin in WWII, you could make a phone call.  Ah, those Germans.
  -  The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away.
  -  The only things that are life and death, are life and death.
  -  Walking the wire between pain and desire, looking for love in between. (Eagles)
  -  What do you think happens when we die?  We're going to find out.
  -  I would hate to have my entire life judged by a 5 minute encounter with someone, but that's exactly
         what happens.  I guess it would depend on which 5 minutes.
  -  Risk, always risk. 
  -  I have been so use to the pain in my life being the only thing that let me know I was alive.
  -  We aren't crazy, we use insanity as a defense against letting people too close to us.
  -  The problem with religion is that it's always concerned with what happens after you die, not what
         happens while you're alive.
  -  My tolerance for story, bullshit, and the victim is very thin;  I'll have to work on that.
  -  Think, think, think, I disagree;  Don't think, Don't think, Don't think.
  -  Do you really think that this vast, awe inspiring, magnificent, fantastic, beautiful and improbable life
        could be described and understood by any one religion?  Or any one philosophy?  Or any one book?
        Not likely.
  -  I think at the hour of our death, all questions will be answered.
  -  If guilt was a currency, we'd all be millionaires.
  -  A cemetery is the most ridiculous use of land I can imagine.
  -  Death is natures way of telling you to slow down.
  -  Too bad most Christians aren't more like Christ.
  -  I can't understand why compassion is considered to be a soft quality; truth is brutal, no matter how
        gently it is administered.
  -  You can't scare an alcoholic.  How do you scare someone who is already terrified?
  -  The Vatican is the largest land owner in the world.
  -  He lies like an eyewitness.
  -  Judge not, lest ye be judged.
  -  The still small voice, is just that. 
  -  There are very few things that matter to me anymore, but those that do, I would die for.
  -  My life has been spent creating a distance between myself and the peace inside of me. (NicA)
  -  Why do your children ignore you?  They intuitively reject hypocrisy.
  -  Most things in life are trivial.
  -  Let me get my head out of my ass, so I can get my foot out of my mouth.
  -  How is it that a hooker always has unreliable eyesight?
  -  Fix, manage and control. 
  -  Boy it is tiring running the world.
  -  90% of all our communication is non verbal; body language.
  -  Why would anyone pay attention to what others think of them?  Believe me, they are so concerned
         with their lives that you don't matter to them anyway.
  -  Quit bitching about what you don't have, and start being grateful for what you do.
  -  Quit bitching about anything.
  -  Thank you God for the moment of clarity.
  -  Wow, time goes by fast.  The older I get, the faster it goes.
  -  From the phone call to AA:  I realized and accepted that I was an alcoholic; I was given the desire to
        move into recovery;  and the obsession to alcohol was lifted from me;  from the phone call!  How's
        that for a gift of love?
   -  Women who live together will cycle at the same time;  that's amazing isn't it?
   -  The Chinese believe that we communicate on several different energetic levels outside of common
          language.
   -  Physician, heal thyself.
   -  Jung believed we carry 4 distinct archetypes: King (Queen), Warrior, Magician, and Lover.  Each one
         has a healthy developmental aspect and mature aspect; each one can also carry a specific pathology.
         Those sicknesses come into our consciousness through a process called the "shadow."
  -  Sometimes the most compassionate thing to do is slam the door in some one's face.
  -  God has been there for me throughout, even when I didn't want Him to.  How's that for loving?
  -  We transmit the amount of information contained in all the libraries of the world everyday electronically.
  -   Computers get twice as fast, and half as expensive every 6 months.  That's called competition.
  -  Why do we buy our oil from Canada and Mexico?  Just a question.
  -  Restless, irritable and discontent.
  -  The most important person in the room sits in your chair.
  -  There is no time, only a constant series of nows.
  -  How does the program work?  It works just fine.
  -  They have developed a process to desalinate ocean water to make it drinkable;  amazing.
  -  I spend a lot of time trying to hide those things about me that others already know.
  -  90% of our information about the world comes through our eyesight.
  -  Democracy is a poor form of government, but it's the best one we have.
  -  It's all good.
  -  Prayer works, give it a try.
  -  The key is to want what I'm gonna get.
  -  Guilt is such a useless pastime.
  -  I have been sober a long time, I have never heard sex, death, or love chosen as a topic.  Not that
         those things matter to us.
  -  Capitalism brings prosperity.  Don't believe me, just look at the stark difference between North and
         South Korea.
  -  35 years sober is impressive;  35 days is miraculous.
  -  Life is difficult, ok.
  -  Nothing is secure.
  -  California is the 7th largest economy in the world, in the world;  one American state.
  -  Control, the Olympic Event.
  -  Freedom is God given and resides in the heart of every human being.  Think of how many people don't
         have the ability to decide their own fates.  Sad.
  -  So your mother and father hated you, don't take it personally.
  -  There is no punishment severe enough for anyone who hurts a child.
  -  It works, if you work it.
  -  What's important is what you learn after you know it all.
  -  We are who we are because we have a system that allows us to self actualize.
  -  Empathy, when you can fake that, you got it beat.
  -  God gave us 2 ears and 1 mouth.  How come that is so hard for me to remember?
  -  Shame, the hot potato that's passed around the alcoholic family.
  -  Carry the message, not the alcoholic.
  -  I sat with my grandmother right before she died at 93.  I said, "wow 93 years, that's a long time."
          she replied,  "yes it is, and it went by like that,"  as she snapped her fingers.
  -  Resentments:  remember, it is better to give em, than to get em.
  -  Truth with love.  I'll try to keep that in mind.
  -  The 12 steps are but suggestions; but it is better for you if you see them as demands.  Just a suggestion.
  -  There was a guy at the meeting earlier with 40 days.  He has no idea how much he helps me. 
  -  Addictions:  see if any of these make sense:  worry, control, rage, perfectionism, depression, chaos,
         romance, people, shame, failure, loss, money, codependency, anxiety, fear, aggression, self pity,
         guilt, power.
  -  I feel so bad since you've been gone, it's almost like you're still here (Cyrus)