acceptance

fear is an addiction

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

Fear is an addiction for a lot of people. They don’t know how to motivate themselves without being afraid of something. They don’t know how not to worry. When you’re living an inauthentic life, you’re going to worry because your subconscious, your spirit, knows your life has no truth. That is why we are creating so many fearful people.
The more illusory stuff we have to protect, the more fearful we will be. There’s almost a correlation between fears that people have and the false lives they live. Beneath all the layers of behavior, it is fear that brings more people into counseling than any other emotion. The counselor’s role is to help people identify what is behind their fear. Real lives start then. – Richard Rohr

I posted the above on Facebook a number of years ago. I knew the truth of this then – that it described my inner life, my false self – but was unable to admit to myself that fear and shame were mixed in with my other addictions – and pride, misguided pride, kept me from admitting it to myself, to another human being, or to God.
As Rumi wrote:
Sometimes the cold and dark of a cave
give the opening we most want

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photo: Grindstone, ME – September 2019

step over your wounds

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

Sometimes we have to “step over” our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there. Then we become the “offended one,” “the forgotten one,” or the “discarded one.” Yes, we can get attached to these negative identities and even take morbid pleasure in them. It might be good to have a look at these dark feelings and explore where they come from, but there comes a moment to step over them, leave them behind and travel on.
– Henri Nouwen

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(photo: Monastery of Christ in The Desert, Abiquiu, NM – September 2018)

Vin Santo

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

that New Year’s Eve
we stood on the hill
above the vineyard

watching fireworks
rise above the lake
from Pieve to Anghiari

later in the stillness
of the barn the cat chasing
our shadows on the wall

a moment so full
if today we could talk
we’d agree we had no better

earlier at the bar in Caprese
Michelangelo we couldn’t decide
what to drink to the new year

vin santo an old man said
holding up his glass
certo vin santo

Photo: Casa Singerna, Caprese Michelangelo, IT – January 2005 – J. Dewaters

gratitude

/ Bill Schulz / 8 Comments

Three years ago – a little more than 1 month sober – I was in a mental hospital after a suicide attempt. I was pretty sure I could fool the people there into thinking I was ok, get out, and do the job right the next time.

This morning at one of my favorite AA meetings, I saw a woman I met at that hospital. She caught my eye and we smiled at each other across the room. We spoke for a few moments after the meeting and hugged.

She looked healthy, happy and I could see that she thought the same about me.

I have not forgotten all that I did in the past. I did all that, yes. Today, my addictions do not define me.

Gratitude.

Thank you, Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank God.

In Tenebris by Ford Madox Ford

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

All within is warm,
Here without it’s very cold,
Now the year is grown so old
And the dead leaves swarm.

In your heart is light,
Here without it’s very dark,
When shall I hear the lark?
When see aright?

Oh, for a moment’s space!
Draw the clinging curtains wide
Whilst I wait and yearn outside
Let the light fall on my face.

(Photo: Portland, Maine – 12.25.2019)

that enormous emptiness

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

in recollection of 12.22.2016 and in grateful recovery 12.22.2019

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.