I heard someone say last night they had been instructed by their sponsor to be "nice" or to practice the quality. I wanted to say that my experience taught me that being kind is more important. There is a quote that is attributed to The Buddha but there is much internet debate on it's actual origin but the quote is " If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind.”

Another quote is sometimes tacked onto it that states, "It is spoken at the right time. It is spoken in truth. It is spoken affectionately. It is spoken beneficially. It is spoken with a mind of good-will"

I would rather people think of me as a kind man, than a nice man. Kindness is a principle of spirit. "Nice", isn't a spiritual principle, it is sort of subjective I suppose. "Nice" reminds me of a first grader being sent of to a birthday party with the instruction of mother to be "Nice".

I wanted to say, "Just be kind", don't crush the earth brutally with your foot steps. I went for nearly a life time not knowing a thing about my true self. I only went by the word of others and assumptions on my part. I know these things to be true, one hundred percent true. I am a gentle man. I am a kind man. I do not crush the earn in brutality when I take steps. I am a grateful man.

Be kind to yourself, be kind to others. Take soft steps.

"Nice" is subjective terminology but "Kindness" is a bonafide , real deal, spiritual principle and a core component of the teachings of The Buddha and of Jesus Christ and of all the great masters.

It is the first day of the last month ever of the year 2014. By living one moment at a time, one day at a time we have collectively just about put on more year in the history books. It seems like minutes ago I was trying to adjust to wright 1978 on my school work as it changed during Christmas break from 1977. You know, I am keenly aware that time on the planet in this body and form is finite. Every time someone I know leaves the party it reminds me of a quote from a time I didn't even know the value of quotes. It was "The things I do today are important because I am exchanging a day of my life for them".

Time is the most valuable commodity we have because it's so limited and it ends for many without a bit of notice. One the surface it may look like the simple changing of the free calendar I got last year from the bank, out with the new calendar I got from Walker's pharmacy, it is not lost on me at all that I have once less set of 365 days of being a spirit being in human form. I was so careless with the gift of time and presence for so many years I know that I am in the "Grace Period".

I am the luckiest bastard on the planet to have been invited to the party and still be a welcomed guest. I find a lot of joy to live that way. I love the old saying in AA "How do you eat an Elephant?" answer..."One bite at a time". 2014 is 30 days away from being consumed by me one grateful damn bite at a time. I'm slack jawed when I think that it is nearly 2015. It sounds like a number in as science fiction script.

I heard someone say last night they had been instructed by their sponsor to be "nice" or to practice the quality. I wanted to say that my experience taught me that being kind is more important. There is a quote that is attributed to The Buddha but there is much internet debate on it's actual origin but the quote is "  If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind.”

Another quote is sometimes tacked onto it that states, "It is spoken at the right time. It is spoken in truth. It is spoken affectionately. It is spoken beneficially. It is spoken with a mind of good-will"

I would rather people think of me as a kind man, than a nice man. Kindness is a principle of spirit. "Nice", isn't a spiritual principle, it is sort of subjective I suppose. "Nice" reminds me of a first grader being sent of to a birthday party with the instruction of mother to be "Nice".

I wanted to say, "Just be kind", don't crush the earth brutally with your foot steps. I went for nearly a life time not knowing a thing about my true self. I only went by the word of others and assumptions on my part. I know these things to be true, one hundred percent true. I am a gentle man. I am a kind man. I do not crush the earn in brutality when I take steps. I am a grateful man.

Be kind to yourself, be kind to others. Take soft steps. Forgive.

I get this on a decent level daily, but i wish I fully comprehended the magnitude that, today is a whole new day filled with unbelievable possibility. I've disconnected myself from hoses that kept attached to the stories of my life to a great extent, that honestly surprises even me. I don't think that fully take in the truth of the matter I still have hoses that tether me to outdated ideas.

The things I carry, from early experience, 20 years ago or 30 years ago limit me. I have more freedom of spirit than I could have ever comprehended possessing. My spirit knows there is even more freedom to be had and I feel a little like a greedy child because I want it. I've tasted the drug of Freedom and without apology, I want more. In order to get the "more" I seek, I've got to make room for it and that means more purging of stories that no long serve me.

When the neighboring town has the "Great East Texas Balloon Race" the word "Tethered" always comes to mind and it's such a great word for my life and my freedom. "Tethered" means- tie with a rope or chain so as to restrict its movement. I work toward an "un-tethered" spirit.

There is a line in 'Shawshank' where Red says "Red: [narrating] I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain."

I don't get to go that place of freedom for good until I find the tethers and sever them. I guess my prayer today is to be shown the hoses and tubes that still connect me to old hurts and stories that no longer serve my highest good. Let the story that has been told, rest in the place where old stories go when no longer relevant and be done with it.

You are inching closer to becoming the intention behind the thought of you that I feel like God had for all of us. I'm thinking we all have a creative intention that breathed us into being and we feel best, we feel most whole when we are just being ourselves and following the passions stored up inside us like secret rooms to be explored only by ourselves.

None of us were afterthoughts. We were designed with precise intention and when I hold true to the fact that just by "being" I am enough, I really start to see some amazing things.

The designer's, Designer.

I have figured out that there are at least two kinds of gratitude. Like Patty and Cathy on the old "Patty Duke Show" both great girls but one clearly had a little more substance. I reiterate, both are great girls, but these days "hot dogs don't make me lose control".

There is "COMPARISON GRATITUDE". All the do gooders that flood the missions on Thanksgiving and Christmas that wouldn't dare set foot inside the mission walls during the year, get "Comparison Gratitude". It is like a contact high. It would be hard not to stand next to someone, for most folks anyway, who was missing legs and not think, "Gee, I'm glad I had to working legs". For whatever reasons , they are incapable of being grateful for those legs the rest of the year.

"Comparison Gratitude" works from the outside, to the inside. It provides temporary short form relief of self consumption.

What I have found and what has profoundly transformed my life, my spirit and my thinking is the way to produce gratitude, from the inside, to the outside. Growing up we had a pond down in the bottom land that was fed by natural springs. It never stagnated and turned to green thick soup like the other ponds around because it had a never ending force of life trickling into it at all time.

I came to Gratitude Springs, the hardest way possible. I lived the life of a hopeless dead man for decades. I had no tricking spring to refresh, revive or awaken my hopeless spirit. The story is long about what happened to change that, but I count myself the luckiest bastard on the planet because I got to return from the dead.

I've mentioned one of my favorite people before named Kay. She was terribly terribly ill and it didn't look like they were going to figure out what was wrong with her before she took exit. She said she promised if she ever felt well again, if she ever could move without restriction she was going to live at full force. She recovered and she lives and clocks in most days around 75 miles per hour. I can't keep up with her.

There is a color, shade, grade and level of thankfulness that permeates the cellular structures of humans when we are stripped down to raw spirit by circumstances or illness. The moment I realized I had nothing including any reason to go on or to hope, I got everything. A door opened and a stream flowed and I saw life as beautiful party that I was so happy and thrilled to still be invited to. Suddenly everything was something to be grateful for, full bodied, inside to the outside gratitude.

When I can't decide what I want to eat, I remember there are mothers on the planet that search all day, ALL DAY to find enough food to keep her children alive for just one more day. I'm aware of the bitter irony of my needs.

When I go to shower, I am often keenly aware of the people who have to be assisted or completely washed by another person.

I see the lost souls of Highway 80 walkers, with stained coats and plastic bag suitcases and I thank God, not that I have a place that's climate controlled and comfortable, but I thank God because I don't wander highways with no where to go to at all. I know the devastation of not belonging anywhere and I see it on the faces that can't make eye contact and it crushes my heart..

The person closest to me on the planet my whole life has lost both her parents and it makes me keenly aware that mine are only here on loan. I have the opportunity to call both mine up and just say hello, any time I want to and I do. I make those calls and the dinners with them , not because i particular need to see them but because they need to see me. I'm very thankful they get to witness me up and functioning in life. I accept them as they are today mainly because I got to the place I accepted myself.

Full on, spiritual and cellular gratitude to me is experience the breath of the god as I understand it. When I don't stop to think that every thing around me, everything thing I see and touch, every seed and every breeze, would have been missed by me had I not decided it was "time to get to living" I see the wasted opportunities.

My friend Kay and I, and millions of others benefit from being in a very exclusive club, we faced death and chose life. We are the bonded like those people who escaped Titanic in life boats. A feeling of overwhelming, indescribable joy to be present, alive and invited to the party, for me came the hard way. It made me work for it and I had to face the darkest dark before I turned and ran to the side of light.

I was fascinated last week by clusters of ladybugs on the side of the van at work. I'd never seen more than a couple. There were 30 or more. I was delighted in my spirit the way a child gets delighted the first time it sees the lights on the Christmas tree. I'm so full body, full spirit thankful that I have experienced "WONDERMENT" as an adult. I know what to look for and work for now.

I felt the humbling spirit of gratitude breath straight through me as I watched to polka dotted ladies move and take flight. It passed through all my mass and my essence and in it's trail it left gratitude. Simple beautiful, inside to the outside thankfulness to be here, to have one more moment to embody with my heart and soul. The most effective and complete prayer there ever was written:

"Thank You".

I had a teacher,a spiritual tour director of sorts jokingly give me the nickname of "Filler of Gaps With Words". It was funny because I do love words. I love descriptions. I don't want to know that something was red. I want to know the shade and the intensity of red it was and then give it a comparison to other great reds I have seen.

I LOVE WORDS, but.... He also pointed out to me, that silence appears to make me nervous and I start a word spill like a giant oil tanker flooding the Gulf of Mexico. If it is quiet, I'm compelled from bad learning in my history on the planet, to fill the quiet. Part if me thinks if I am talking then I am in control, complete control of the uneasiness of the moment. Part of me likes the sound of my own voice. If there is one thing a drug addict likes move the drugs it's the sound of his voice filling a room. Part of me is in fear of the chaos of quiet in my head and my spirit.

I have to practice the willingness to be wordless, to let the stillness over take me. My experience is that God speaks anytime I listen, but it is easiest to hear when I allow the breathing moment to stay still and quiet. Be still.

Someone knew my name at the new AA meeting I have been going to for a month or so. It was a mark of progress. I've been on one of my first two off days and it's been lonely. I picture an art house film following a man around who goes through his day connecting with no one.  We see him buy a gallon of milk alone, and pick up two ribeye steaks, a twin pack. We see him cook them both and eat them both alone. He picks up his apartment and washes the dishes, even though no one will see any of it. He watches the clock and wait for the time to come when his phone friend 200 miles away might be home from work and willing to talk. He straightens up the comforter on his bed and puts his shoes away even though no one is coming. No one is coming and he knows he has to keep going to meetings and meeting people if the hope of every having companionship is ever going happen. The camera closes in on the finger on the phone pad and he dials his friends number. His friend says hello.

One of my favorite quotes is "What the caterpillar calls the end, the world calls a butterfly". As humans we go through metamorphosis dozens of times in a lifetime. The death of one version or understanding of myself gives birth to the improved version of myself. Unfortunately I don't get to do my changing in a safe little cocoon hiding the awkwardness of change. We not only grow up in public but we change form completely while the world watches. Every time I emerge from my from the dead self, I have manifested a new more purposeful human with more colors on me than I had ever dared hope for. The very nature of life is change. If we are not evolving we are not living.

Unlike turtles and crabs that leave their shells and form new ones, the butterfly has transformed into a whole new and different creature.

Surrender has an under tow. Many times the moment you surrender something you feel a rush of relief and freedom but sometimes, not. Some times when you surrender something you are left with a gulf of emptiness.

The only way past the gulf is to feel it. Struggle will only wear you down and cause more pain when we try to fill the emptiness. You can "unsurrender" the thing you surrendered but we never get past the things we need to grow beyond if we chicken out at the first symptom of " The Gulf of Empty. The the "Tao Te Ching" clearly states the the emptiness of a bowl is what makes it a useful tool for storage. The moment it is filled up, it is no longer useful.

We hold on to things at of habit, even though they have long surpassed the expiration dates of purposefulness. When we hang on to that that has served it's purpose it is most of the time painful for us. It can be a job, a husband or a mind set. We are in a dilemma, endure the pain of holding on or face the fear of the Gulf of Emptiness. Only one of those choices holds the key to new possibilities.

I've surrendered a lot of things of the last two months especially. The silence and depth of the "Gulf of emptiness", is un-nerving. It feels like depression, but it isn't. It's me getting use to emptying of the bowl to make me useful in a whole new way. I like feeling useful. It's great freedom to feel like there is purpose to your being. Frankly, I like to feel good. The "Gulf" doesn't feel good but I have had enough experience of my own to know that I will come back eventually with a fabulous upgrade in style, function and capabilities. That is my experience thus far.