Sunday Sermon [Uncovering Humanity]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Yesterday will go down in history as the “Million Morans March.” The spectacle of “tens of thousands” of people advocating against their own self-interests was embarrassing to watch. Also, why don’t they just call the president a nigger already and get it over with? Rep. Wilson, an avowed son of the Confederate who brow beat Strom Thurmond’s biracial child, yelled out, “You lie!” He might as well added “boy” to that bullshit. Let’s not forget that the one who lied was Wilson, not Obama. Let’s also ignore the fact that Wilson and his family are recipients of socialized medicine.

The average neoconservative has the mental acuity of a slug.

* * *

-=[ Keeping it by Giving it Away ]=-

Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don't, then you are wasting your time on Earth.

-- Roberto Clemente, baseball Hall of Fame, humanitarian

There’s a slogan in 12-Step fellowships that says, “In order to keep it, you have to give it away.” Now, how the hell can you keep something by giving it away? In addition, what is that you’re keeping and giving?

In recovery, the process of healing is contained in the “recovering” of the basic goodness of your human nature. In taking away the moral issue, the process of recovery frees you to become a moral agent in your life. In recovering, you work to dig under all the conditioned garbage to get at the essence of your humanity -- an essence that is beyond good and evil.

Once you have entered the process of recovery, you begin to learn that your life was ruled by consuming. In the quest to consume, you threw away your basic humanity. But the fact is that it was never lost, it’s been there, deep inside of you all along, and as sift through the wreckage of your life, you return to your original face before you became a Hungry Ghost.

A part of recovery is coming to the realization of a narcissism that is at the root of your obsessive need to consume (not just drugs, but people, places, and things). You begin to learn that to fully recover/ uncover your humanity, there’s work to do -- there’s a need to get outside of your head and the narrow would of wants and needs and opening up to the vital connections and relationships we need to thrive as human beings. Without relationships, we die -- we wither like untended flowers. An infant will very likely die or become stunted if it deprived of the touch and caress of human hands. Your mind/ brain is shaped by the relationships in your life.

In turning from your humanity, you have condemned yourself to a spiritual starvation. I’m using spirituality in a very broad sense here. Spirituality comes from a Latin root word meaning to breathe -- and breathing is the one thing that connects us all. We all share the same ecosphere and we all breathe the same air. Therefore, in a very real sense, spirituality is primarily about connection. This vital connection is the first casualty of the obsessive quest to consume. We uncover this spiritual connection in the process of recovery.

Without that connection, we merely succeeded in moving the obsessive compulsion to use/ consume into another area of our lives.

People (co-dependency)

Places

Things (drugs, sex, ideology, etc.)

You do the inner work and recover your humanity -- your connection to others, to the world and the process of healing, of becoming whole begins. This is the “it” in keeping it. The “it” in this context is you redefined not just by your wants and needs but also by your connection to everything. It’s the bigger you, the Higher Self you, as opposed to the “mini me” you of your personal hell.

In this context, “keeping it” means staying in tune with that newly realized connection to all of humanity, to the world. How do you keep that connection vital? The only way is to give it away.

The next time you’re doing an enjoyable activity, whether it be shopping, playing a game, or having sex, bask in that feeling. Consciously allow your senses to luxuriate in the textures, colors, tastes, sounds.

Continue to do this while feeling all the people in the world who are at war, sick, or lost, despairing in loneliness -- while you’re enjoying your activity. Start with those you know, your friends and family, knowing their private pain. After as while, expand to feel everyone who may be starving, sick, or dying. From your heart, radiate to them the happiness of trying a beautiful garment, of drinking a delicious drink, of making love to a loved one. Offer them the feelings and imagine beaming your wonderful experience of your activity to all those who are suffering.

In order to be free as love, give your joy away. I order to keep it, give it away.

Give all your wonderful experiences away to others, as gifts, keeping nothing, not even a memory, for yourself. Guilt, shame, and stress come from the obsessive compulsion to hoard happy moments. If you want to walk a path of healing, of recovering your essential humanity, give your happiness away to others.

It’s the only way you can keep it.

Love,

Eddie