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April 13 – Stepping Out of Self-Pity · The Daily Ripples Podcast

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Welcome back to our Daily Ripples podcast. And today is Monday,
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April the 13th, and we have a special double-length episode for you today.
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And I know you're wondering to yourself, well, how could this happen?
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Well, it's simply a scheduling mix-up where Corey and I individually had some
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guests co-host, and I had recorded today, and before I also recorded today with Bill and Zach.
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And I have previously recorded today with my good friend, Brother Larry.
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And this is a different Larry than who appeared a couple of weeks ago.
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But I know that both episodes are full of engaging and great content.
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And so we're just going to have them one after the other.
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So trap in and get ready for the special double-length episode of the Daily Ripples podcast.
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Let's get at it. Well, welcome back to the Daily Ripples podcast.
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This is April the 13th, and our Daily Ripple for today is titled Stepping Out of Self-Pity.
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But before we do that, I do have a very special guest on the podcast with me today.
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He is a brother pastor of mine in the United Methodist tradition, and his name is Larry.
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So, Larry, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of
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what your experience is with either daily devotionals or recovery or just faith in general.
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Just give us a little bit of insight into who you are.
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Absolutely. A daily devotional is a part of my everyday practice.
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I actually use Richard Rohr's meditations from the Center for Action and Contemplation.
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In active recovery, then in long-term recovery for...
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2003, 22 years. Wow. 23 years with its ups and downs. Absolutely.
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There's been a relapse or two in those years.
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My grandfather, a bird watcher, United Methodist pastor and a husband,
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and I appreciate this opportunity. I appreciate you.
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Well, absolutely. And thank you, Larry. We are glad to have you here with us today.
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And I know, and just for those listening, Larry will be here with us on the podcast.
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For probably today and then the next three days as well. So he'll be here with
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us through April the 16th.
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And we're excited to have him on here. And I know that we're going to have some
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good conversation that comes out of this.
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So, but we'll kick right in because
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this is a podcast that's at the intersection of faith and recovery.
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Our Daily Ripples are faith-based daily devotionals that take a stone of truth
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from AA's Daily Reflections and then ripple that out into practical and spiritual application.
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And we close each ripple and each episode of the podcast with our prayer.
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But our daily ripple for today is stepping out of self-pity, the stone.
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Self-pity feels comforting at first, but it slowly narrows my world.
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The more I focus on my own wounds, the less I see the needs and struggles of others.
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Ripple 1, Practical Today, when I feel pulled toward self-pity,
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I will shift my attention outward.
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I will listen to someone else, offer encouragement, or lend a helping hand.
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Serving others interrupts the spiral of self-focus and reconnects me with reality.
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Ripple 2 is spiritual. As I follow Christ's example of compassion,
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the Holy Spirit redirects my heart.
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My burdens grow lighter when I stop magnifying them and begin sharing in the lives of others.
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Over time, the Father replaces self-absorption with gratitude and genuine love.
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Now, Larry, I know as a fellow United Methodist pastor, that last line that
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I read, you know, over time, the Father replaces self-absorption with gratitude and genuine love.
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There's a particular type of grace that we call that in the Methodist tradition.
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And I know that for those listening, you may not know of that,
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but we call it sanctifying grace.
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And that's exactly where my mind went as I was reading this anew this morning.
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But Larry, what initial thoughts do you have on our Daily Ripple for today?
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Well, I was thinking about when I turned to self-pity and what I use to start
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each day and then to pull myself out of moments of emotional distress or want
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to sink inside myself like that. And my first thought was gratitude.
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I start each day with affirmations of gratitude. And when I find myself in a
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situation where I could turn in on myself, I try to turn to gratitude as well.
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Anna Lamont, who is a writer, she's also in recovery and speaks and writes openly about that.
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She's got a wonderful book called Help, Thanks, Wow.
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And it's a book on how to pray for people that aren't used to praying.
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And she said, there's really only two prayers that we need to pray.
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And that's help me, help me, help me. And thank you, thank you, thank you.
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So I turned to gratitude to pull myself outside of myself,
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to see others, to recognize those reasons that I have to pick up and move forward
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and not just ruminate and wallow in whatever it is that gets on my mind.
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Well, and that's a very good point to make, you know, starting with gratitude,
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because I know that in a lot of recovery programs and the one that,
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you know, I'm a part of is recovery from, you know, alcohol addiction.
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But that particular group, you know, has a symbol that's a circle and within
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it is a triangle and there's three sides to the triangle and gratitude is one of those sides.
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The other two sides are service and recovery. So, in other words,
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you know, it takes all three of those to make the table, if you will, a recovery stand.
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You know, you can't hold up a two-legged table, usually. You know,
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it has to have at least three legs.
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And so that's where my mind goes as well. And, you know, lately,
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I've been struggling. I've been pretty open with it, with people with just anxiety,
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especially in the morning when I wake up.
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You know, so I'll wake up early in the morning and I'll have like thoughts of
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anxiety running through my head of all the stuff that has to be done in the day ahead.
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And what I've started doing to combat that is just, I start reciting my favorite
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prayer, you know, at the beginning of the day.
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And my favorite prayer is the serenity prayer because I wake up already not
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serene or not at peace, you know, and it's not every day, but, you know, several days.
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And so I've started just repeating that serenity prayer.
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And for me, it is making sure that I start the day with my brain on track,
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you know, with things properly categorized, what can I control and what can't I control?
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And God, you know, give me that wisdom to know the difference between the two. And.
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Almost immediately when I do that, I'm able to hop up out of bed and,
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you know, get to work and do something productive.
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And, you know, that's also part of, you know, this particular ripple today,
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you know, speaks to, you know, getting out of our own self-pity and to combat
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that, we get into service to others.
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And, you know, I don't know if, Larry, how much you know about it,
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or even those listening may not know about it.
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I've spoken about it, you know, somewhat briefly, but I had a whole,
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you know, full-time job in, you know, public service, you know,
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in the governmental world.
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And that ended abruptly, you know, toward the end of last year.
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And so, you know, I had a mourning and a grieving process for that.
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But then, you know, by the time I kind of started getting out of myself and
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realizing that I was being stuck in my head too much, I started doing more and
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more, you know, service projects and just trying to be, you know, of use to others.
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And that's where things like the Daily Ripple, Daily Devotional that I'm writing,
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you know, were born out of that, you know, pretty quickly.
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Excuse me, the podcast with Corey was born out of that because as I started
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getting more active with helping those who are easy for me to jump in and help,
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and that is, you know, fellow alcoholics,
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then God started, you know, giving me another, you know, sense of purpose and
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sense of calling, even again, you know, to have almost another, you know.
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Mission or ministry, you know, side of that.
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And for me, you know, that crosses over the fence with, you know,
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recovery and faith, because that's what my life and experience has been.
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You know, I think that God does use our experiences, both good and bad,
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to form our witness, you know, in the world.
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But, and I also think about, you know, following Christ's example of compassion.
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And of course, When I think of that.
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I think of the Good Samaritan, the parable of the Good Samaritan.
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And Larry, I know that you know that one. And because I've already been talking
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for too many minutes at once, and my wife would be in the corner saying,
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you need to kick it back over to Larry.
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Why don't you give us a quick recap of that parable for any who may not be as
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familiar with it, if you don't mind?
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Yeah, Jesus was confronted by a religious authority.
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So some Bibles interpreted that as a lawyer, but he wasn't a lawyer in a sense
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of go down to 201 popular lawyer.
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He was a lawyer in a sense of, you know, the local court system.
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He was a religious lawyer, and he asked Jesus what the greatest commandments were.
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And Jesus said to love the Lord your God with all that you are,
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all that you have, and all that you'll ever be, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
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And being a lawyer and being argumentative, he said, well, who is my neighbor?
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Jesus told the story, and it's pertinent today.
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The story that Jesus told about was about a Jewish traveler who was on the road.
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He experienced trouble.
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He finds himself set upon by bandits. They beat him up. They take his money.
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They leave him on the side of the road.
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And a Samaritan, which you could say was a person of another race, comes along.
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Now, Samaritans and Jews, they didn't get along very well. And this had been
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going on for centuries before Jesus told this story.
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And it's been going on for centuries since. The war that we see at Lebanon is Samaria.
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And so the war that Israel's fighting right now in Lebanon is all a part of that.
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And so Jesus picked a character to be a neighbor to the person in the ditch
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that was completely opposite in every way, politically, religiously.
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Who knows about their economic status, but it would have affected their social status anyway.
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And so this Samaritan pulls the man out of the ditch.
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He puts him on a donkey, cleans him up. He takes him to an inn,
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and he pays the innkeeper to take care of the man, to feed him and to treat
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his wounds until he can come back and check on him again.
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And Jesus asked them, who was the neighbor?
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And the lawyer has to answer, you know, the man who reached out and helped.
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And it's transformative when we do that work. You talked about John Wesley earlier.
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I tell people, we talk about John Wesley and the means of grace.
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The means of grace, in my mind, were...
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You talk about a three-legged stool. It works in three different directions.
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There's the grace that I experience from showing compassion to another person.
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There's the grace that the other person experience in receiving God's love through
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some act of service or gift of service.
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And then there's the people that witness that, that see that experience,
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because it's important that we share our stories and we share experiences like
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we're doing on this podcast today so that other people can witness it and experience
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the grace of God and transformative grace through that as well.
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Absolutely. And for any listening, if you're not as familiar with that parable
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and want to look it up, you can find it in the Gospel of Luke in the 10th chapter.
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Another one that kind of comes to mind, you know, another verse of Scripture
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that comes to mind is, you know, in Galatians 6 and 2, we're told to carry each
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other's burdens, and in this way, you'll fulfill the law of Christ.
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And you just talked about what the law of Christ essentially boils down to,
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and that's love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as you love yourself,
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you know, those two greatest commandments. and,
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that carrying each other's burdens. I mean, that's exactly what I think.
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When I think about the two worlds that I straddle and that often collide, faith and recovery,
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in the recovery community, I think that they could probably today even teach
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the church a little bit about what it means to carry each other's burdens,
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because that's exactly what the recovery community is doing.
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And sometimes some congregations, some people within the church don't quite get that as well.
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They still want to see the person on the side of the road and think, well, I'm too busy.
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I'm in too much of a rush. And if I stop and help them, I'm going to be unclean kind of thing, you know.
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But for me, that's always the drive and the encouragement is that,
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like you pointed out, you know, when I'm helping someone else and getting outside
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of myself, God grants me grace.
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And He also grants grace to the person that I'm helping. And He grants grace
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to anybody, you know, who witnesses it or hears about it or is impacted by the
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experience of the giver or the receiver, you know, of that compassion.
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But that, do you have any other final thoughts about today's reflection today,
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Larry, or are we ready to close out with our prayer?
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It will turn to gratitude, turn to service, get yourself outside of yourself
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and recognize that maybe one thing that I have to say to myself over and over and over again,
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maybe I'm not as important as I think I am.
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Oh, man. Maybe I'm not as important to other people as I think I am.
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And just maybe something else is going on and it just doesn't revolve around me.
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Amen to that. Well, with that, let's close out our episode. Actually,
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we're going to stop it right there because this is the point at which this episode
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where he recorded with myself and Larry comes to an end.
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But we're going to jump in. Like we said, this is a double episode.
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So let's get right into part two with Horry, Zach, and Dill on their final day
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with us on the pods. Let's join in.
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I think to sell pity, I mean, golly, that's the first thing that,
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that's the first hit right there, isn't it?
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I mean, 86, the first thing we ask for is on awakening, consider our plans ahead,
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direct our thinking, ask that it be divorced from self.
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That's the very first item of self that we ask have been being divorced from.
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I mean, if you're in steps 10, 11, and 12, understand that, you know,
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if you want to take away your difficulties, I guess self-cunity could be included in those difficulties.
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It certainly fits the bill, you know.
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But again, it kind of summarizes everything that we've talked about over these
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last few episodes, too, is that, you know, I will listen to someone else,
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offer encouragement, lend a helping hand.
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A.K.A. the free, the didger, the dishes, man. I swear, I would love to just
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change our home group's name to We Do Dishes.
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We could try that. That's next Tuesday is the best. Dish, Sammy.
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I'm seconded to it. It's our, it's my version of Chopped Wood Carry Wire.
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But isn't it interesting, though, in the rooms? Because there's always,
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I mean, y'all's group has a little bit more active, but, you know,
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you say active, define active.
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You mean like people that do actually do the dishes, that their hand is out.
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I mean, we've talked about it before. I mean, you know, I did it in our home
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group, you know, raise your hand if you need a sponge.
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Well, how many people are hovering around the person that raised their hand?
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And, you know, and I think that, but this whole program comes into that,
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the altruistic movement.
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I mean, I had patients. What if you don't practice this?
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What if you're, what if someone listened to this that's just like newly Christian
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or maybe thinking about it and
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they just want to like not feel like crap tomorrow, you know? Back to bed.
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Right. I mean, that's what, that's the beauty of that is this,
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this works on your life no matter why you need to.
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I mean, you know, Doug used to tell me, if you need someone to help,
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go drown down the interstate and go pull over and go help someone that's stranded on the side. Right.
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There's plenty of something, even as simple as paying someone a compliment.
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Right. I'll give Bill the credit. He suggested it to me. I said,
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man, that's cheesy as hell. I'm not doing that.
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I'm not going in there and complimenting that lady's glasses, man.
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No way. Nobody does that. You know?
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She didn't think I'm a weirdo or whatever. And I started doing it and it helps.
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It helps me. It helps them. It's amazing.
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It's amazing what it can do in the environment of not having like a life or
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death, got to save a drunk or whatever.
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But you're right. Drop down the highway. You'll see someone on the side.
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You may not accept the help, but just do offering is enough to put that energy,
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invest that energy into the universe.
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You know i think you know it was there's been
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different moments in my life where you know it was the someone
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on the side of the road like someone in the parking lot that's pushing their
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car right and then you know you start thinking about the ambulances started
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the ambulance drives by you start thinking about you know where they're gone
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and you start making prayers for those people in those ambulances yeah then
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you know man like you know at one point you know i was driving down the road
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and I saw this horrible crash and man, I had a little tear.
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You know what I mean? And I'm thinking about, look, what could have happened?
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I think that's the, you know, the revolving thing, you know,
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because once I started just giving a little, because I think,
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you know, giving in my mind, you know, because I think giving in my prayer life as well,
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because my prayers start just being directly towards other people,
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everything else in the world besides me, because at once it was just with me,
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right? It was just, hey, take away my difficulties.
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I get, you know, I'm not trying to give you the W here, but it becomes that,
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you know, what about get around to it? And what about their difficulties?
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Praying for other people's difficulties rather than mine.
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Right, and talking about the observance of other people's suffering or other
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people's difficulties.
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It says serving of others interrupts the spiral of self-focus and reconnects
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me with reality, which for me quite often is that the reality is simply I have everything I need.
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I'm completely taken care of. And as far as I can tell, have since I began the
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process of making conscious contact with the guy. Well, how about since you took your first breath?
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Well, good point. I mean, you know, that concept is like one where...
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I mean, I just think that's pretty grobbed. It is.
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Well, it's easy for me to focus on the now and the last week and the past couple
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weeks, you know? But it's a reality of like.
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I talked about this on this thing before, but, you know, I was sitting down
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with a guy, and we were talking, and he was talking about the devil.
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And he was like, well, the devil made me do this. And I was like,
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what are you talking about? Anyways, I didn't know. He's destructive.
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He's sure. Power. But, you know, I was asking him, I said, well,
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man, like, do you think me putting my hands on this girl and me doing all this
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other stuff and this and this and this, do you think the devil was in that? He said, yeah.
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And I said, well, do you think that the devil's right here sitting with us?
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He said, well, no, we're like, you know, doing this.
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I said, well, it took all of that for me to be right here.
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And I think that goes back to 53, you know, when we were crushed by self in
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post-crisis or when we became alcoholics, crushed by self in post-crisis,
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we couldn't postpone our Vedas, God, everything or nothing.
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And I think, you know, for me, the clarity, I think it was the clarity we were
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talking about here, but the clarity when God becomes more and more of everything
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or even through the drink, through the birth, and all through all of it.
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What about Christ's example, Billy? Can I, well, I would look at if I follow
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Christ's example of compassion.
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Well, in John 15, verse 12 and 13, it says, My command is this,
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love each other as I have loved you.
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Greater love has no one, greater love has no one than this, that he lay down
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his life for his friends.
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Okay. You know, so, I mean, that could certainly be, you know,
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I mean, in this one, obviously Christ's talking about literally doing exactly that.
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But, you know, from a, you know, the figurative statement or barrier,
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he was die for someone or whatever.
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Yeah, or you'd be willing to do things that you would normally not be willing
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to do if you're living in a life service or attempting to live a life service.
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You know, it's, I find that that when I exist in that space of serve others
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that, you know, I still, I just don't.
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I don't experience a lot of turbulence and my friend, Mikey calls them Blake
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turbulence and I just don't, it's like, man, just riding on a,
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skiing by on a boat and just hanging on and I've got no pressure pulling me one way or the other.
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You know, I mean, and not to say that I don't have problems or I don't doubt
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or I don't find myself in, in times that is the all.
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I think it's kind of odd. My work environment is pretty much the same every
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day. and there are no, I wouldn't consider there to be more or less opportunities to serve.
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So we're talking about ways where you can go get into service and it's like
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a physical opportunity to be of service.
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Washing the dishes in my home or folding my children's laundry.
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Those are physical activities that are there that I can choose to be a part of.
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At work, I'm in a situation and I can either be there and not be,
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have a perspective or of service or an attitude of service, or I can have an attitude of service.
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And it's amazing the difference in my day.
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There are no wakes on the days when I'm able to see my work as an opportunity, as a service play.
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Right. And that is merely just like being a nice guy. It's like that simple.
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It's that simple, you know, and it's crazy to me.
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Like I really thought that to be in service, that I had to be doing some activity to serve.
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I had to be at a soup kitchen or giving my shoes away or something.
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Like bodicing meals up for the poor or something, which those are nice things.
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And sure, I might grow into that one day, but it is simply for me just taking
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an attitude that whatever current situation is, in fact, an opportunity for service.
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Well, it happens backwards, right?
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I think, you know, because we're just going back to the, we do it because we must.
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So we do, but we do it because we must. We do it in our affairs first.
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I mean, in the structure of AI, at least, start doing it in the rooms.
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Then it might start happening at the job. Then it might start happening at work.
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Maybe work in occupation and home are kind of flip-flopped a little bit.
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But, I mean, I would say that it happens in the rooms first, people.
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You know, the home is the last place we, because, I mean, at least for me, there's a time where,
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and this was in my other step, but I spent all my time working with guys at
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meetings and, you know, not hiding, but almost hiding away in that line. Oh, yeah.
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Yeah, I mean, I think that's what it took for me for five years probably.
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Right, but then it happens in my home after that, because that's my affairs
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that you really want to look at it as bad.
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That kind of enters into a can of worms or even another topic from one of the
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previous days of the blame thing where it's like, that's not my job.
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They've got their job, I've got my job.
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You know and and and that's where else i know i've
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talked about the boundaries and not doing more than
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your share kind of thing or what if you do you know
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my first sponsor would say i
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would ask him about getting taken advantage of and he was like good you're not
24:54
being of service if this is not inconvenient i'll just salute one that's true
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you know and so you know it took a while to grow out of their job and my job
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right what i'm not supposed to have to be doing and i and i work I mean,
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I think I'm still in that quite a bit at home. It's almost gone.
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It's almost gone. I still get a little grumbly, but I'm doing it.
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I'm doing the action, you know.
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But yeah, dude, it never fails. I mean, it's consistently illustrated in our literature.
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If you're worried about taking a drink, if you feel like this,
25:27
ask God for a thing and then go help someone.
25:29
Yeah, and it's been repeated over and over. In early sobriety for me,
25:33
there were days when I was like, if I feel like this tomorrow,
25:36
I'm going to drink. And the only reason I didn't is because I felt obligated
25:40
to uphold a commitment to me with a sponsee that night, you know.
25:44
And that's like the real, I don't know, down and dirty of what it was.
25:49
And now it's growing into what we've been talking about, like this true, I want it.
25:54
I want to feel that feeling where I'm free from doing this in an exchange.
25:58
It's not for my sobriety anymore. It's not necessarily for their sobriety.
26:03
It's just because, you know. I'm tired of my life. Right, right.
26:08
It's because that's, yeah, that's right.
26:09
Duh. That's pretty much it. I pray and then I try to be of service.
26:14
That's it. And I think in the spiritual part, it talks about gratitude,
26:21
you know, replacing self-absorption with gratitude.
26:24
And, you know, like when I think about gratitude...
26:28
But when I used to early in sobriety and certainly, you know,
26:32
I may say early, I may later years into it or whatever.
26:36
I like how Bob D says earlier, earlier, right? Earlier is a good one, right?
26:42
But the, you know, gratitude I thought was like I was supposed to feel like
26:46
I was supposed to feel good about something, you know?
26:48
And like for me is I can my for me today, gratitude is like if you if you want
26:54
to know if I'm grateful for something, you'll see how I treat it, you know.
26:59
And I think I think our program, you know, in the in the AAs,
27:03
it gives us the the the formula, right? It says home occupation and affairs.
27:07
And to say that, it's like, how do I what do I do? Right. Am I taking care of my house?
27:13
And it could be chores, but it could also be just sitting down and spending
27:17
time with my wife, watching, you know, whatever housewife she wants to watch
27:21
and not, you know, being critical of it or whatever.
27:25
But if, but like for me, like gratitude, you were supposed to do that?
27:29
I didn't, I'd say that, that's a lot, that got a lot more. You're not there
27:32
yet. Well, you guys, hey, I'm just getting you.
27:35
You just said you still grondle a little about that. Is it about to do an audition
27:39
anymore? Or you're just now getting past the dish part, right?
27:43
You ever got to find out that I got to get it? I had a cure, man. You want to do that?
27:47
But the fact is, is that a grateful heart has busy feet or busy hands. Yes.
27:56
And that's the important part. Did we tape all this? Are you sure?
27:59
Yeah. I was looking up a definition. Oh, what definition? We got a dictionary right here.
28:04
What's the? Well, I was looking up on Philippians. What definition?
28:08
Uh, the definition is, uh, of what word? vain conceit.
28:15
Because it says, do nothing, in Philippians 2, 2, 3, it says,
28:22
do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
28:27
Rather, in humility, value others above yourself, not looking to your own interests,
28:32
but each of you to the interests of the others.
28:35
And I think, you know, the whole giving of myself is a place,
28:40
too. It's like a place I got to be.
28:42
You know, and you were talking about, like, you know, because I don't either.
28:46
I don't go one way or the other. I'm pretty just neutral.
28:50
I'm in just calm waters. I mean, you know, if you're riding a boat,
28:54
you're skiing, right? Like, you know, I'll kind of drift a little bit out,
28:57
like, you know, the wake just a little bit, but usually I just come right back in.
29:01
And yeah, it's just, I mean, I think I could just bring it all back into meditation.
29:07
You know, the more and more I focus on, well, because we are,
29:10
I mean, you have a lot of guys you work with.
29:13
I mean, I got a couple of guys I go through the book with, but,
29:17
you know, I think God's put it in such a way that like, how could I ever not get out of myself?
29:25
Right. Yeah. Well, the whole thing, ultimately the whole thing is having had
29:30
a spiritual awakening as the result.
29:33
We tried to carry this message. Well, what's the message? Well,
29:36
having had a spiritual awakening.
29:38
That's the message. That's the only message. And the spiritual awakening is
29:42
essentially that conscious contact that we make with our Creator that allows
29:47
us to do these things that we're talking about here, to live in gratitude and genuine wealth,
29:53
you know, to be a part of life at last.
29:57
You close it with a prayer? Prayer. Prayer. You can read these daily devotionals
30:02
at dailyripples.com. And if you have any feedback for the pod,
30:05
for myself or Corey, our regular co-host, you can email that to wave at dailyripples.com.
30:12
But our prayer for today, Father, free me from the trap of self-pity.
30:17
Through your Spirit, help me see
30:19
others with compassion and walk in the self-giving love of your Son. Amen.