Teen Suicide SOULutions (Give Peace a Chance)

I know what it's like to be a teen trying to decide whether to live or commit suicide. 

At 16-years old, I was ready to kill myself rather than hear and feel glass cutting my mind and feeling the blood oozing from each cut.  As I experienced my mind as a battlefield, I was exhausted from seeing Hitler beckon me to hell, ready to give up after first seeing baseballs and later knives and long shards of glass flying at my face when I closed my eyes to sleep, and more.

At death's last disputed barricade, I in final, silent desperation cried, "God, if you're real, please help!"  

I then heard three gentle words say, "Rest, My Child." 

I immediately fell into a peaceful sleep, free of the torment that held me in insomniac terror. 

Before those words entered my spirit mind, I had little sleep in a long while, with sleeplessness stealing my last reserves over 72-hours.  It was literally impossible to sleep, to find any peace, and I was willing to die rather than experience any more torment.

For me, it's hard to fathom why so few of us are willing to ask if God is real or to ask for help.  Our best thinking got us into these incurable messes and 'thinking' our way out with the mind that got us there was a little unlikely.  

For details of this story, look for the chapter of my book that says, "Rest, My Child."  

Here's the link to my book of miracles.  Give peace a chance: 

www.amazon.com/dp/1544058721/ref=cm_sw_su_dp

Each Day a New Beginning, by Karen Casey

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/946673.Each_Day_a_New_Beginning" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women (Hazelden Meditations)" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1391341888m/946673.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/946673.Each_Day_a_New_Beginning">Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/113125.Karen_Casey">Karen Casey</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2125838749">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Funny thing is, this book was gifted to me by a man in 1990 who didn't realize it was written for women. It took me a year before realizing it myself! I laughed out loud the day I realized it! I did notice it had a lot of mentions that I thought were bit tilted toward females, but I just went with the flow. This was one of the best books I ever read that helped me to see and deal with my issues in life in a way I understood. Maybe it fed my Feminine Side, I don't know. But I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to grow. Karen Casey is a woman highly blessed by our Creator to bring Higher Messages to a world needing Love.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/7705929-timothy-g">View all my reviews</a>
 

The JOURNEY Self-Acceptance

Taking risks in a spirit of self-acceptance is a beautifully peaceful lifetime option available to everyone.  A peace that surpasses ALL understanding awaits us at the door upon which we knock with complete surrender, forgetting everything we think we know and abandoning ourselves to Complete Trust that Our Creator has our backs, no matter what!  No one has to "earn our trust" in this field of surrender, for if it were true trust must be earned, that surrender space would be occupied or displaced by trying to impose harmony or force solutions.  

Looking for Solutions that Need Problems to Solve

Funny, last night in a group, when asked I had had any difficulties I cared to share, I couldn't think of anything to report in my life that I hadn't turned over. It was like nothing in my life could be "wrong", that I couldn't be off of my Sacred Path, no matter what. While I am aware I screw up daily, think something stupid or whatever, I also forgive myself and others to the best of my ability and let go of the rest.

Anyway, last night, someone thought I was being arrogant or narcissistic when I shared a happiness report. It reminded me of the day I finally loved myself after looking in the mirror daily (for 8 years!), saying, "Timothy, I love you!" and I MEANT IT! EIGHT YEARS OF HARD WORK! After I shared my happiness and how it happened ("Mirror Therapy"), someone asked me, sarcastically, "What!? Are you gonna KISS YOURSELF, TOO?!" To her credit, two years later, she apologized for that comment. But I was not offended when she said it.

You know that "Happy Place" you get when nothing is wrong with the world, the place where no one can steal your joy because you're just too friggin' overjoyed? Well, that's where I was. I didn't feel hurt or offended, and I knew she just didn't understand.

Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, it will always materialize if one works for it.  Last night I didn't feel overjoyed, but I couldn't think anything could be wrong with my life, either.  Maybe I'll think differently tomorrow, but today, sufficient is that number of problems I don't multiply by looking for solutions that require a problem to solve.  

 

“You must be like me; you must suffer in rhythm.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

Quit calling me a White Man, please. In fact, no need to call me a man at all. Don't call me straight of gay, left wing or right wing, Christian or Muslim, American or One Worlder, etc.

God only sees the Heart of an Atheist or anyone else for that matter and doesn't send that person to hell because they don't subscribe to a belief in God. God, if there is a God, doesn't need the human mind to defend God or promote God. If there is a God, it's God's Job to reveal God. Everything else is just human separation.  Can you do a better job with God than God?  Maybe YOU should sit on the throne in the end days to prove it, eh?

So, forget the men's groups/women's group Gender Centrists, lawyers' AA, Pilot's AA, Judges' AA, or whatever group of victims 'special interest' Glass House groups that are hiding their superiority complex with self-justification.

If you want to end racism, stop talking about it! Stop talking about the problem/solution matrix, because every solution needs a problem to be solved. Solutions keep the issue alive and well; it keeps it fed. Solutions are the 'bread n' butter' of the lobbying industry. Activist needs more money to perpetuate more activism and becomes an endless cycle. Churches or any organization that exists to "fight" something, risks “being joined at the hip” against the thing with which they struggle.

Antiracists place more emphasis on racism than it can do for itself. The Big Book reads, "...and we quit fighting everything and everybody...", which I find as the most powerfully profound words in the book.

Script(ure) reads, "In the household of Christ, there is no male or female, Jew or Gentile, Slave or Master..." It is also written, "Call no man Master."

In the beginning was the Word and if we stay focused, we are but an echo or mirror of that Word. 'The beginning and the end' all rest in the Word. What we do for ourselves (ME) is transitory, but what we do for others (WE) is eternal, but only as long as "others" means EVERYBODY.

It would be easy to stop talking now, but for those few people still having the tenacity or courage to read this far, I'll continue.  I’m writing in a vacuum now, most likely, which might save me from judgment.

To the so-called 'black' individuals who threw gasoline on a so-called white man, and then laughed as the human being ran screaming in agony, this is NOT an excuse for me to become racist.  To the so-called "white" individuals who lynched so-called black people, and the so-called 'Black on white crime statistics and rape' is NOT a reason to become racist or sexist (the KKK and Nazi's use these stats to anger people into their pool of hatred). 

When an inmate kills a guard or vice-versa, it is not justification to hate guards or inmates (and I know of it going both ways, having been in prison).  Crips kill Bloods and vice-versa; Jews killing Muslims and vice-versa; Christians killing Muslims and vice-versa; Catholics killing Freemasons in Ireland and vice-versa.  Extreme right or left wingers killing one another (and anyone who gets in the way), and the war goes on ad nauseam.

Whether we hate someone who doesn't look like or believe like us or hate someone who 'cuts us off in traffic' or butts in line or doesn't respect us, it's all just bullshit ego games to hate.  Hatred in the human heart, whatever we hate, is just plain ugly.  Hate doesn't discriminate. 

Love One Another, for God, is Love.  LOVE is my religion, and it is not inclusive nor exclusive.  Rather, it is a Union of Polarities. 

Live and let live, even though the truth might set you free, but it also might piss you off first.

Just call me Timothy or just smile when you see or feel me, end of story.

https://youtu.be/ksRB4faMU7o

Greatest Thing the World Never Saw

Some people think the greatest people in the world weere: Gandhi, Rumi, Black Elk, St. Francis of Assisi, Beatrice Webb, John Howard Griffin, Günther Walraff, Patricia Moore, Jimmy Carter, Bob Marley, Helen Mirren, MLK Junior, Sister Teresa, Helen Keller, Dalai Lama, Amma the Hugging Saint, Leonardo Di Vinci, Jean-Paul Sartre, Muhammad Ali, Billie Holiday, Emily Dickinson, Mozart, Saint Teresa of Ávila, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Malala Yousafzai, Walt Whitman, or even Lassie or Rin Tin Tin, etc.

But really, maybe the unnamed 'greatest thing the world never saw', was the kind, compassionate soul who held these beautiful souls' hands as children!

The hand-holders helped them find deep treasures of human beauty that would one day inspire the rest of us.

Small acts of kindness are eternal. Be kind. You never know whose life you might touch for future generations.

I love you.  You are beautiful. Pass it on.  Namaste.

Between the Dark & the Light

Excavating the Shadow Side of our existence with the Light Side of ourselves is paradoxically relevant because, without light, there can be no shadows. The Ray of Darkness surrendered, like waves under a new moon, cast sound like an echo in the noonday sun. Until we finally understand the part of us that attacks the 'other' part of ourselves, we will never love the entirety of ourselves.

We talk about unconditional love for others but do we forgive ourselves through empowering others? If you wanna keep it, you gotta give it away. Fundraising for Billionaires is what we do for those people too impersonal to understand. Spending OUR time on their corporate ventures invalidates our lives UNLESS we aim toward empowering the dance between life and death, the light and the dark, the sun and the moon, etc. Do your work, be thankful for EVERYTHING and DANCE! Who dances without music?

Mystical transmission in sound is why it's so important to take music baths. Loving pets that purr or bark happiness is a music, too.

Take refuge in the dance of your creation.

God "Grant" Me the Serenity and Humility (whatever that is) and a Little Laughter

This general idea helps me. I'm not of the opinion God is a He or Father, but I allow 'each to their own' and Live & Let Live to prevail. Rather, the general idea of 'serenity' as a gift of humility which is granted, I find useful. That's why IMO we ASK for it in the Serenity Prayer. Serenity comes from not my opinion of others, their opinion of me, or even my opinion of myself. 

I realized somewhere along the line that the only time I am unhappy is when God or someone else ain't doin' it MY way. That convenient truth allows me to laugh! The gift of laughter keeps many of us who are 'in the trenches' with bombs of life dropping everywhere, to rise above it all.

Know It All

Selective reasoning is the cancer of all human history and excuses 'excuses' in both high and low places.  Listening is an underutilized art that chisels no fat from the carcass of truth, but rather traces death back to life, and calls it 'Resurrection.'  

It's easy, to be honest, and wrong, or dishonest and right.  It's easy to get away with the misplacement of commas in one's own listening 'skills' and throw-away one's freedom to the plains of hesitation to die a taxpayers death upon the fields of peace, falling one's personal sword of truth.  

I AM neither a tax-collector nor a truth-collector.  It is not until the attachment to truth dies a hideous death that we win our freedom over life.  In other words and more familiar terms we've all experienced, 'everything I ever let go of had claw marks all over it,' like the inside of a coffin when the oxygen is thinning.  

The shell holding the truth passes away and the spirit of what we've been lead by from the moment of our birth forward becomes visible.  We 'see the light' and awaken, and sometimes, have the misfortune to return to this world and feel the entirety of our pain while being 100% that it all means something more than anything we've had installed in our minds with previously.  Earth School is a often painfully beautiful classroom.

Take what you like and leave the rest.

Proper Amends: Matching Actions & Words

Some people are too arrogant to say, "I'm sorry" out loud, in front of people.

In 1980 or 81, a man I knew (RIP) lead by example. One fine day in Super Max, he reamed a Lieutenant for a couple of minutes, in front of witnesses, maybe 50 people or more. He called him out on his bad behavior and made no bones about the exact nature of his wrongs. The Lieutenant listened without arguing, then walked away when the man had his say.

To the man's credit, when he found out it was NOT the Lieutenant who committed the infraction, he took action. He apologized OUT LOUD, IN FRONT OF THE PEOPLE who he accused him before.

He said, "I owe you amends and the only way to begin to make this right is to apologize to you in front of the people I hurt you in front of." This was the only time in years that I saw tears well up in the Lieutenant's eyes.

So, sometimes words are powerful actions. Some people need to hear the words, "I love you", while others need to see it. Some refuse to speak the Love Language of others because they selfishly think their way is the ONLY way.

The world is built or destroyed with words.  Words followed up with action, balanced language, and human experience yields to inclusivity.

Masks of Superiority

CULT (one definition is the chain of bondage): NOT like me. Not LIKE me. Not like ME. All ego BS. Born Again Atheists slam religion 'religiously'. Just say NO! to Agnostic Bigots burning metaphorical question-marks on your yard! Hating the Haters is gaining ground on the Slippery Slope. People that give their ego power to disdain others, who feed & breeds their personal brand of superiority, whatever it might be, are practicing bigotry. What we are all wanting at the end of the day is self-acceptance. We can't disdain others without disdain staining our hearts.

Many are Called, but Few Pick Up the Phone

But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be forgiven or at worst, punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more, will be required.

I've come to understand (or believe) that the person who has faith without experience has reached the pinnacle of success. My lungs were healed with a touch and a prayer. Those that believe and live without such evidence, are already blessed. Knowledge can destroy faith. Once we KNOW something, living in pure acceptance, living in the Mystery, might dissipate.

To experience a miracle and to still have faith is a miracle in itself. Awareness is a GIFT of open mindedness.

The Set Aside Prayer asks that we set aside everything we think we know, so we can receive. Who pours living water into a closed container? Don't let your knowledge become your prison. Let the dead serve as composted fertilizer for the living.

40th Anniversary for Little Timmy, the Meaning of Family, and "Indian Time" in Recovery

So, today I began my meditative day by reading instead of writing, saving the latter for later. Now I am writing.                                                                                                                          It seemed fitting to read what a dad in recovery did to be in the life of his son, and then the story of a mom in recovery who put her family back together, too.

The experience of learning while reading was multidimensional if you will; to absorb their respective stories and digest them helped me.

Coming from a broken family, my mom being a drunk and putting us in a dysfunctional foster family (sexual and other forms of abuse were present) and my never knowing my dad, I have never had a feeling of a family outside of 'The Program.' I have a niece who is present in my life, and for that, I am humbled.

As to the stories I read, it was cool to celebrate a parent in recovery who stepped-up to love and care for their children. I can today celebrate this without remorse or a sense of loss or longing. How can one reasonably miss something they didn't have? One can miss a 'concept' of what they were 'supposed' to have or feel an infectious absence when they see other people enjoying family, but truly there's nothing wrong. It's not what happened to us in life that matters. It's what we do with it. Life can either polish us or make us disintegrate, dependant on the power within us that realigns our consciousness, mixed with a willingness to look for higher messages.

Why one person is aware of miracles while another person is aware of only pain, is evidence of a power unrelated to chance.When the miracle of awareness keeps pouring into the one life but not the other. Miracles happen every day in EVERYONE'S life, but why one person sees it, and another doesn't, well, that's the evidence.

Another dimension of my life includes today, August 15th, 1977, as the date I removed a child from a loving families' life by driving a stolen car under the influence. His name was Timothy Wilborn, AKA, Little Timmy. Today is the 40th "Anniversary" of that horrific day. He was six-months-old the day I heard his baby stroller beneath the car.

The parents I read about in recovery re-birthed their families and made a living amends. 'But one can't make a direct amends to someone who is dead,' I said to my Mary Jo Robinson, my Spiritual Advisor (she preferred that term to Sponsor). Mary Jo Robinson was a mom whose son was killed by a drunk driver, so I listened when she said I could make indirect amends. She got me in MADD, and I still work to turn tragedy into a story of hope by speaking.

But what of Sherrie, the mother of Little Timmy? Can I resurrect her son and make amends to her? No, but she told me she forgives me and loves me. She also said she is pleased I am keeping Little Timmy's memory alive and doing so honorably. She tells "our story" about the tragedy and how God moved her to a deep place of forgiveness, doing for her what she couldn't do for herself. Mary Jo did the same thing, and both women had Catholicism in their lives. I've always said that no one does forgiveness like a Catholic (Buddist comes close, though).  Forgiveness is a miracle.

Yes, today is a day where I will probably 'hit a meeting.' "On the Red Road" meets at the Minneapolis American Indian Center,  7PM, "Indian Time", is OK.  But the front doors of the building are locked after the meeting starts.  There is a buzzer and someone will come down to open the door for you, but it's best to be there before 7.

Lais·sez-faire and Crapitalism; Baby & the Bathwater

Let's not throw out the baby with the bath water.  Lais·sez-faire is the baby and capitalism has been masked with chemicals to smell of freedom.  In case you forgot, freedom has nothing to do with money.  Even if it did, 'money ain't for nothin' if your chick's for free'.  Freedom is Beautiful.

Stop signs are for those that don't know what it means, like numbers on pool balls, it's TMI but with laws.  An attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering, in foreign to the control freaks of the world. But of course, those unable to control themselves cannot be touched by the ones whom they wrong, as it's illegal.  Release the consequences to nature and see a more peaceable world.

Everything serves a purpose, including laws, but the purpose has little or nothing to do with the laws themselves.  They are symbolic of respect.  Respect the law and see what happens.  I bet it turns out better than you might have guessed.