Butterflies and Land Mines

The Mag #255

Reason is our soul’s left hand, Faith her right. ~John Donne

Faith is a white horse that must run in the black of night
and the soul is the rider that must hold on with no reins in sight.
It is a treacherous journey that requires a lot of guts.
The kind that walks through land mines with eyes completely shut.
 So let go of your logistics and reach out for something true.
A credence that is mightier than any scientific proof.
For genuine conviction is a force that moves through hardy walls
and the voice that drives it onward has an ever gentle call.
 You see the cement of the soul is full of both tenderness and might.
For faith is a true force yet enigma like butterflies and land mines.
 

Recovery

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At the bottom is always the best soil to sow and grow something new again.

In that sense, hitting (rock) bottom, while extremely painful, is also the perfect sowing ground.

That being said, before we can begin to grow, we must first realize that we are bogged down. (Step 1)

WJM

My arms have grown weary and my back is all worn.

My insides are crumbling and my outside is torn.
Life is a journey that requires some might
and rest becomes a luxury instead of a right.
So now I am in need of major repair.
God's needle and thread with love, hope, and care.




This was originally written for
 Poetry Jam for the "One Word" prompt.
My word is:
Recover
Unfortunately I did not make it in time, so I am sharing it with Poet's United's Poetry Pantry #236



  Being the mother of a recovering addict alcoholic has made the last few years of my life rough in more ways than just a worn out arm chair.. I am blessed to be able to say that his ultimate rock bottom was 6 months ago, and the journey since then has been the beginning of rehabilitation for a road full of wreckage that once seemed beyond repair.  It is hard to have to admit, but my own dysfunction inhibited his recovery for a very long time.  My need to smooth the gravel path prolonged his stay on a road of destruction, and that is a sad truth that I must never forget.  The fact of the matter is, recovery is not just for alcoholics and addicts, it is for anyone who has been born upon this earth.  If you have lived then you have felt something and been touched by the wares of life.  It is impossible to feel and not at some point get hurt in some way, and if you have been hurt, then you are in need of recovery. 
Like a worn out chair that has been sat on again and again, we all eventually need some mending.  Fortunately there are many avenues of help out there.  Many churches and support centers have groups that meet and provide a great help to those who are ready and willing for a change.  There is "Celebrate Recovery" a Christ based approach to recovery that was a response to twelve step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous.  "Overcomers Outreach" is another great support group founded on the twelve steps and the scriptures as well.  No matter what place you might find yourself in this life, there is help and support out there.  You just have to want it bad enough to have the courage to reach out for true help and start mending your life.

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"Let your hopes, not your hurts shape your future."

~Robert Schuller



I Should Have Listened To My Mother

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"The past can't see you, but the future is listening." ~Terri Guillemets

Pearls of Wisdom

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In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls. ~Honore de Balzac

Like Broken Glass

"Pain is pain, hurt is hurt, fear is fear, anger is anger, and it has no color."  ~Iyania Vanzant

There is a saying in recovery, "hurt people hurt people".  I used to think I understood what it truly meant and felt that I did not apply to it in any way.  I always considered those around me and their feelings in all my actions, but it seems that I have been mistaken.

It has been over a year now since I went through my last divorce.  It was my second unsuccessful marriage, and it was in my actions after that time that this truth become clear to me like a freshly cleaned window.

There are all kinds of ways we can hurt people in this life.  It is not just done directly by a gun, blunt object, or the tongue.  We can inflict all kinds of damage to others just by the choices we make for ourselves.  The man a woman chooses to marry, if he is not a man of integrity and kindness, can possibly down the road be an abusive father, or simply a poor example of what a man is supposed to be.  This is not a direct act of blatant hurt or premeditated infliction, but it still has its effect on others in the long run. 

 That being said, it is easier to realize that there are ways in my life I might have inflicted pain and suffering upon another.  

My point of greatest weakness is in my relationships.  My choice in men has left others to ponder my very sanity, and question my judgment deeply.  It is almost like a scarlet letter than I have placed with my own hands upon my brow. For others to witness.  I am drawn to a broken man like a river is drawn to the sea.  Is it because I want to fix someone or repair what’s broken?  Maybe, I only know that when faced with a room of choices I will always gravitate to the ones that others would avoid. 

When I started dating again after my last divorce I talked to a couple of nice men and then decided to join a dating site.  Needless to say, a person with my kind of issues should never join a dating site.  It is like putting a heroin addict in a room full of needles; or a child loose in a china shop. Not a good idea all the way around.

In the course of trying to find the perfect man for me, I found myself dating the most broken ones.  I cannot completely explain it, but that is only part of the problem I created.  As certain dates did not work out, or did not meet my need to be utterly needed, I would immediately latch onto the next prospect like a spider grabbing its prey.  Poor unsuspecting men, who simply wanted to meet someone to love, would be trampled upon like they were in the middle of a stampede, as I scurried over to my next prospect of a mate. 

Unfortunately, I left behind a trail of destruction in my wake.  I will probably never know just how far and wide, but I am certain it is there, and I am its culprit.  Now in hindsight I can look back and see it more clearly.  I can view the wreckage for what it is; a broken person hurting other broken people as they pass in life, like a frantic hand reaching through the broken glass. 

I am now settled into a new relationship.  To someone that I met on the date site.  A man that captivated me from the first moment I laid eyes on him.  Our desperate need to be loved and needed makes us both the perfect pair and not.  It is kind of like science experiment that is both amazing to watch, but can be a disaster when it explodes over the flask.  He is a beautiful hearted man, who has made choices in life that have sent him trailing down a harder road than most, and in so many ways so have I.

I guess one could say based on my last paragraph that I have not learned anything from my past mistakes, but to that statement I would disagree.  It may appear that way, but I believe that some changes do not happen fast.  Some things move slow like an old man without his cane.  I may still be in a relationship with a broken person with a past, and I may be frazzled and broken myself, but like a window that has been repaired with new glass, I can see what is before me.  There was a time when I was wandering blindly to this truth.  

Life is like that; a journey of different measured cobbled stone steps that take a while to make.  I may not be where I need to be today, but I am not where I was yesterday, and that is a progress, be it slow as it is.  The truth is, I am a work in progress, and I may still fall along the way, but I am learning a little here and there as I take each step forward.  I may have lingered in the place some would caution to leave, but I also am aware of the cause and effect of my actions and this is a clarity that in the past was utterly broken.  Now it is in the process of a careful and slow repair.

Yes, hurt people hurt people, but those in the process of recovery can reveal healing in their life, that can also give hope to another on their path, and that is where the miracle of recovery begins.

Linking with Poetry Jam for Mary's prompt "Broken".

The photo above was obtained from Google Images.

To Comfort the Soul

The Mag #243

"Truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is."

~ Nadine Gordiner

I have always longed for a great love
 to comfort my soul.
 One that would nourish
 every need inside and out.
 Inspire the best and with grace
 make the worst disappear.
  A devotion that would
 cradle like a soft crocheted sock
 and protect my very stance
 from the greatest of stumbling.
 Yet, in my search what I have truly found is

 that the only one that can fulfill
 these needs within my soul is God,
and in my foolishness I reach out to man,
again and again at no avail.
It is in the hard fall
that I find the comfort of God.

Lovely Is the Fall

The Mag # 242

If Heaven made him — earth can find some use for him. ~Chinese Proverb

There are many ways we lose thing in this life, like a tree loses leaves in the autumn wind.

It is not just death that steals from the heart what could or might have been.

More than just a fire can take a house and tear the home right down,

as many trade winds that blow can carry the leaves until they hit the ground.

I did not realize what I had lost until the midst of winter's hardest cold

though you had been falling long before the autumn's rustling winds could blow.

Yet, for everything that is lost, something else new can be retrieved.  

There is a lesson spread upon the path that sounds out like rustling leaves.

One man's fall can be a guide post for another's future steps in this life
for even loss and hurt serve a greater purpose to inspire a walk that's truly right.




My sponsor once asked me why I could not give my son and his addiction over to God.  For a long time I could not truly answer her question.  At the surface I did not know the answer myself.   The following is the answer I eventually gave her:

"I am afraid of losing him, not just in death, but also in addiction.  For anyone who has ever had a child go through such a severe addiction knows that we do not just lose people through death, we lose people all kinds of ways.  When he was in the depths of his addiction, he was lost, and I felt I had lost the true him; the person he was truly in his heart.  I cannot tell you how devastating that experience is, but I understand now that is why I have held on to the fear of turning him completely over to God, as foolish as that may sound.  Even though he might need to go down another dark path to reach the place God wants him to be, I do not know if I could go through that again.  The pain of losing him in that way is beyond explaining.  Be it what it is, that is my reason."

It has been over a year since I wrote these words, and much has happened since then.  I am grateful to say that he went down the dark path again and hit rock bottom there.  He is now very active in recovery with a sponsor and sponsoring someone himself.  I have seen the miracle of recovering in his life and the inspiration of how he can help others that are on the dark beaten path of addiction.  That is what is lovely about falling.  We can reach out for help and get back up again, It is in that process we become a help to others through the example of our own life's lessons.  It may be a hard course, but when it is learned genuinely it is a beautiful one.

A Whisper In a Hailstorm

Photo Credit

 

 

Now I know, a refuge never grows
from a chin in the hand and a thoughtful pose
Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose.
~Indigo Girls

 

 

 At a glance, you cannot see a shadow in the dark.

Its beginnings are as undefined as recognizing

one face in a crowd.

For no eyes have ever taken awe at a 

painting halfway done.

Its colors are as obscure as

the misunderstood ring of

a vaguely uttered sound.

Listing, you cannot hear a

whisper in a hailstorm.

Its vibrations vanish in the wind

unnoticed as a sigh of regret.

For a heart has never been moved

by an act of complacency.

Its message is as uninspiring

as words that were never said.

 

 

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for "Open Link Monday"

 

Blink of an Eye

Self-portrait, Vivian Maier

The Mag #241

Every man is his own ancestor, and every man his own heir. He devises his own future, and he inherits his own past. ~H.F. Hedge

 

It is in the moment of the click and flash

as I focus on what's before me

that the past flashes before my eyes
all memories exposed like film
and I zoom in and click
over and over again
at shutter speed
hoping
for a better
picture than the one before
yet it is so easy to blink
and capture myself
again with my eyes closed.



The future is a dark room where the film has not developed yet.  All the photographs that we took in the past are in progress waiting to become clear.  Only we can develop the negatives.  For our lives are a photograph that both leaves traces of our passage, and leads to our destination.



Fulfillment Is Like A Dixie Cup

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Linking with Poetry Jam for Gabriella's prompt "If I were"
 

 "There are people who have money and people who are rich." ~Coco Chanel


If I were wealthy with more money than I could spend
and beautiful like Mona Lisa attracting all the men
with fame like Marilyn and grace like Fred Astaire
I would have everything I wanted and no worries nor cares
but if I am soberly honest and think it through like a queen
I am certain that this wealth would not truly change a thing
cause no matter where I live be it a mansion or a trailer park
I will still have worries and can still have a broken heart
in fact the deepest problems could possible get bigger to
for the more you got the more you truly got to lose
so pour my champagne in a Dixie cup and fill it to the top
I don't need a crystal goblet I am happy with what I got.


Fulfillment is like a Dixie cup that fills up rather fast
a little is sufficient when you have a fuller glass.


What gives you the greatest fulfillment in your life?