What’s Worth Doing

At a recent AA meeting, the topic of discussion was: Why do we keep coming to meetings?

Answers beyond the obvious I don’t want to drink take some reflection.  At least for me, sober since ’89.

My natural inclination nowadays, when presented with such a question, is to feel that the universe is asking me to address it afresh.  As if this were the first time I’d ever considered it.  And in a way it is.  The person I am “now” is someone I’ve never been before.

 That’s why I was mum at the meeting.  It took a few days for the story inside me to surface.

I was reasonably young, ten or so, when it became increasingly difficult to do things that just didn’t feel right.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I came into this life with the belief that it was wrong to surrender one’s freedom of judgment to another––a view in natural conflict with those who believe nurturing equals control.  Anyone who ordered me to do something “because I said so” might as well have been speaking Swahili.

My resistance was intensified by not finding anyone who could give me a reasonable understanding of why it seemed I was living on another planet.  One that required vigilance because it was tough to comprehend.  Go to church.  Wash your hands.  Clean your plate.  Don’t be fresh.  Weren’t there more important things to consider than that?

I felt orphaned in a way, and so kept what distance I could from anything I found foreign to my heart.  Today, I’m very grateful I did.  It’s been a long, slow, at times messy journey to determine my life’s purpose, and from there what, for me, is worth doing.

I go to meetings for the same reason I take a shower somewhat regularly.

For the same reason I stretch and strengthen for an hour most days.

For the same reason I meditate regularly.

For the same reason I drew with pen and ink virtually every day for a good ten years as a form of self-awakening, producing some 1500 drawings that reflect what I consider the call of my heart.

For the same reason I write in a journal every morning, and have for the past 499 days.

For the same reason I eat a ton of kale.

For the same reason I welcome three dogs climbing on top of me as I awake most mornings.

For the same reasons I work on writing essays or blog posts like this every day.

For the same reason that, daily, I read something written by or about a person whose relationship with the ultimate nature of things I admire (e.g., Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Yogananda, Pema Chodron).

For the same reason I test every meaningful idea I have against the wisdom of my wife.

For the same reason that, in the seasons when it’s possible, I build stone sculptures that dot the landscape of our rural homestead.

For the same reason I’m available to all sorts of people who ask my help in addressing the challenges of their life.

It serves my life’s purpose.  To grow my capacity to love.  And to share what I’m learning in any way I can that might be useful to another.