There is a heroin epidemic that is plaguing my beautiful home state of Vermont. It has been all over the news. Junk is everywhere and just about everyone is doing it. Rehab centers are turning people away and telling them to keep using until a bed opens up.

One can probably imagine a young girl running down the street. She hasn’t bathed in awhile and her hair is a mess. Her clothes, well, she has been wearing the same ones for a week and now they smell. Brushing her teeth? For get it.

“You got a fix? I need a fix.” She repeats this over and over to everyone she sees. She owes her dealer so he’s skipped town. She is desperate. She is a junkie. The big H has become her God. She can’t live without it. Getting and using stuff is now her full time job.

Now imagine the same girl running down the road. Only know she is not looking for a fix. She is looking for a cure for cancer. “You got a cure, you got a cure?” She repeats this over and over to everyone she sees. She is desperate to help her family.

You got a cure?

NO cure.

Now she is running down the road looking for a prayer. “Can you pray, will you pray?”

She is seeking to get the God in them to save her brother in law and her poor sister who cares for him. If she just gets enough people pray she can fix it. She can save him and her sister too. She can control the world. She can fix it.

Look at this girl. Look at what her codependency is doing to her. It is killing her the way h is killing young people in this beautiful, rural state. “Can you save my brother? I think if you can pray one more time you can save him. Can you pray for a new brain?”

I can’t say I was that person, but I sure wasn’t far off. That pretty much describes my behavior for the past fourteen months. Begging every person I knew to pray for him, trying to save him. He is my brother, I love him. Deep down, to save my family of origin, my sister, to save her from pain and anguish, especially after what she has just been through with Mom. Trying to save her. Trying to fix her. Trying to make it okay. Trying to play God.

Now this is me. I am trying to fix it, safe it, fix her, save her, fix him, save him. I am feeling their feelings.  I feel their despair. And when I’m not feeling it, I’m telling myself I should be. Most of the time I don’t need to do that. Feeling it comes naturally. It’s as natural as flicking on a light switch. I have had years of training.

This is enmeshment. This is my codependency patterns running wild:

If you hurt. I hurt; I think I have to fix you.

Your moods and actions are my fault.

I don’t know what I need, I focus on what you need.

I am obsessed with making you happy, with saving you.

My fear of abandonment and rear of rejection determine how I behave.

 I feel what they feel. I need to detach. It doesn’t have to be about drugs, alcohol or gambling or men or sex. It can just be that you love someone and you want them to be well. You want to fix something that you can’t fix, change something that you can’t change and it sends you into despair.  You get into enmeshment trying to fix it. When you finally accept it and realize you can’t change it, you get into despair and it affects everything in your life. There is this big, thick grey cloud hanging over your head. You are like there is that feeling again, the moment you wake up.

Pretty soon its not just obsession with my brother who has cancer and I’m taking on his feelings, and my sisters feelings and his despair. But now a little boy at one of my schools died and I have to feel what those parents are feeling too. Then I hear about the mudslide and what about them? I have to feel what they are feeling too. And what about the people in Malaysia who are waiting for news of their loved ones on that missing plane? Where is that flipping plane anyway? And the people at the hospital! The hospital is closed and they’ve all lost their jobs. Now I have to feel their feelings and fix them too? Better put them on the list. And another friend has a lung that is collapsing. This is going to kill me!!

This is enough to drive me to insanity. This is when my life has become unmanageable. This is when I need to come to Coda. I need to detach with love and start to take care of myself. The only thing I have control over is how I react to what I happening. This was my experience this last week. It drove me to exhaustion, depression, selfishness, despair and ruined my Sunday worship to the point that I was worried I wouldn’t be able to go to my Quaker meeting anymore, which sent me even further into my despair spiral to not be able to see my spiritual family.

Then I think how can I fix it, how can I change it, who can I call? I’m desperate help me help me help me. No answer, no answer. No one is home.

So what is the answer? For Juliet it means I need to work my program. I need to admit my powerlessness over others, cancer, disasters,disease and death. I need to give it to God.  I need to humble myself before him, admit that I am out of control and that I need help. I need to get to a meeting, write out some step work and read it to my sponsor. I need to let go of what is not mine and give it back to its owner. There is a God and it is not me. I need to take the focus off of others and put it back on myself. I need to admit my powerlessness over my enmeshment.

Slogan: I can’t God can, I think I’ll let him.

Admitting powerlessness is half the battle. Just admitting to God that I am out of control and powerless over these obsessions, feelings, control and compliance patterns helps it ease up. Suddenly the pressure is off. Some one pressed the pause button and I can breathe in and out. I can figure out my hand position and get my bow straight before they press the play button again. I can let go. I write out my steps. I read them to my sponsor. Suddenly the current is back flowing in the right direction and I’m going with it. Breathe. Just breathe. Give every breathe to God. It’s okay. I’m not driving the boat. None of us are. God is driving the boat. God bless the twelve steps. Breathe just breathe. Live every day in gratitude. And let go. Just let go.

My parents were really into antiques. They decorated their house with antiques, and were always looking to add to their collection. It was a passion that they shared together. Part of this collection consisted of some Delft china of my mothers that used to sit in the corner cupboard of our kitchen.  I used to see it there as a child but don’t ever remember looking closely at it or seeing the pictures that were on it or anything. It was just there staring at me from a distance along with the cigarettes left on the saucer by mistake and the Stoli’s that was in the teacup in the corner.

Through the course of my tumultuous childhood resentments built up inside of me. I suffered neglect at the hands of my mother, who was rarely there for me emotionally or spiritually. I had a lot of anger towards her for drinking and blamed her for almost everything. My father was in his power hungry mode and had a desire for control, money and women, and that really turned me off. So, I decided that I wanted to run away from all of that and not participate in it. I didn’t want to have any part of it. I took pride in the fact that I didn’t want anything from them, not their money, value system, social life, antiques or memories.

But, through the course of time, experience, recovery and taste, I’ve grown to really like antiques and country style and in fact, I did like some of my mother’s things. So when she moved I got some of her copper and when she passed away I decided I would like her Delft. Still, it sat in her storage unit for a really long time.

I remember her saying when she moved to California that she wanted to keep her Delft but didn’t want to get it out because it was just too sad. I couldn’t understand that. It is just china. What’s the big deal, I thought. Maybe it reminded her of something, but I didn’t know. More blame. What’s the matter with her? She wanted to keep it but didn’t want to look at it, it was just too sad. Whatever.

So eventually I did have the Delft shipped from California to my home in Vermont. I took it out and set it up and looked at it. It has ships on it. Then it hit me. Oh my Gosh that is the reason it was so sad for her.

My father grew up as a sailor on lake Michigan. Sailing was his thing. After my folks got married they would sail together. They would compete in sail boat races; have friends on the boat to party. The five-o-clock-cocktail-hour crowd spent many hours on the decks of that boat.  It was like a status thing for her. I really don’t think she was that fond of sailing, I think it kind of scared her. But she did it to make him happy and to be with him. She was fond of the status and how it made her appear to other people. That represented them, that boat. So I thought, Oh, that’s it. Mom was a hopeless romantic. That kingdom, that God of my father had failed her. That is why it was so sad because she realized that he wasn’t true to her and romance had died. Then he died. Poor Mom, I thought. I wouldn’t want to get up and look at those memories everyday either. That would be like me hanging pictures in the cabin of Alex and I snuggling at the movies and having to get up everyday with them staring me in the face. That would be enough to make me go back to bed and pull the covers over my head for the day. I get it.

So Mom was a hopeless romantic. How about it?

This is all a sign of forgiveness that I can look with compassion on her and say, poor Mom, I understand. Her world was collapsing and she reacted to it by self-medicating. She just couldn’t stand it. I have empathy for her.

These are signs of recovery for me. These are signs of forgiveness.

So the Delft sits on my kitchen shelves. I bought those fancy plate hangers that make the plates stand up so you can see them clearly. The ships keep my kitchen afloat on the ocean of faith and hope. Every time I look at these dishes I think of her, and I think of him.

I have pictures of them as young people sitting on my piano. They were just starting out. They had their whole lives before them and the whole world by the tail. Beautiful, beautiful people trying to make it before everything got messy. It was their best moment. Now I hold these pictures of them in my mind. This is how I remember them. This is forgiveness. It is recovery. I am grateful.

I’m currently reading a book about spiritual practice among Friends and I came across this passage that has been really bothering me for several months now. The passage in question appears in a section that discusses focusing on a particular dynamic in ones relationship with God as a co-creator of ones future, as opposed to attempting to discern Gods will for ones life. Thomas Merton states that basically people act like God has plan or map for their life in a drawer somewhere and that we think all we have to do is find the right drawer containing the right map and we’ll be all set and on our way. He says it’s not like that. There is no predestined plan for us because we are co-creating the plan with God. He says it is more like a great improvisation that is constantly unfolding.

What? You mean there is no blueprint for Juliet’s life?  Really? I don’t want to think that is true. What if it was? What if I’m really entirely responsible for all my choices and unlike Robert Frost, who chose the right road not taken, I chose the wrong one and end up in a mess? I mean I’m human. I’m human, self-centered, selfish, can’t get out my own way. Man, don’t put me in charge! Yikes! And besides, I was never that great at improvisation. The improv classes I took at the University of Miami were really gnarly and made me sweat buckets, even in rooms that were cold enough to hang meat.

Besides, Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before you were formed in the womb I knew you. I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord Almighty.” So was Merton denying all of that? He was a monk; he can’t just say it’s not scripture, can he? Maybe he means that since there is that of God in me that it is like I am co-creating my plan but it freaks me out because what if I make the wrong choices create the wrong thing? That bothers me.

Psalm 139 says, “When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be (Psalm 139:13-16).”

I can see how we are co-creators in the sense that we have been given free will and can choose to follow God or not. We can choose to get to know, love and make God first in our life or not. So in that sense, I suppose we could be creating the blueprint of our lives.

I choose to believe that God does have a plan for my life.  If I remain in a constant state of prayer, listen for His guidance, and practice unreserved obedience to Him, I think I will be able to follow His blueprint for my life.

Okay, so maybe I won’t find a drawer with a map in it. But I’ve never been good at reading maps anyway, and even with my new GPS that my sister and brother-in-law so lovingly gave to me for Christmas one year, I am an expert in getting lost. So hopefully the map is really a spiritual blueprint than can be discerned through prayer, meditation and the study of Scripture.

I find great comfort, promise, faith and hope in the Scriptures. They have gotten me through many tough times. I believe they are the inspired word of God. I do believe God has a plan for me that was created before I even came down to this planet. That is what works for Juliet. So whether it is a blue print, a map, diagram or drawing, I will use the tools I have to seek it and follow God’s path. Nothing I ever do in this life could be more important.

I can be a very obsessive person. When this particular character defect starts revving its engine my mind I can easily get caught up in all or nothing catastrophic thinking. Everything becomes the world’s biggest disaster, the world’s biggest super storm.  Now in reality, it may not be a super storm at all. It may just be a speed bump.

What is a super storm and what is a speed bump? And how can I tell the difference? Sometimes I think experience is the answer. My body needs to learn the difference too, because right now everything is a crisis. My heart starts pounding and my mind starts racing faster and faster. Oh my gosh, how am I going to survive?  Oh no, it’s all over. My life is going to end.

One of my most recent calamities involved my teaching license. A few weeks ago my mentor called me and urged me to log onto DESE website (Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) and renew my license because the Union president said all you have to do is log on, pay your fees and that’s it – license renewed. I was pretty certain that my license was due to expire in February, so it made sense to pursue this.

I logged onto the website and low and behold, to my surprise, it said my professional license was pending and I still have my initial license. Further investigation revealed that my test scores had been accepted and approved.

However, in another place it said my test scores were incomplete. Plus the button involved was pink, which I took to be significant, meaning bad news was ahead, something awful, something life changing, or at least horrifically expensive and that was what I had to fix.  So I scanned and faxed my test results to the email listed on the bottom of the page. Well, in another place it said I needed to take a huge load of special education courses, and courses in technology for teachers. “There is no way I can do this,” I thought to myself.

By this point I was sweating and my inner child was so scared she was clinging to me for life as if I were the only tree left in the middle of an Indonesian tsunami.

So I email the DESE folks a hundred times, sent them all this stuff and tried to figure out what else I could do for a living. I was really in a place of fear and lack and my heart was pounding as if I had just run the Boston Marathon. “I’m going to starve,” I thought. “I’m going to end up jobless on the street, living in a box in the back woods of Pownal. I won’t be able to teach, but maybe God doesn’t want me to teach. Maybe this is a sign from God. But how am I going to make money? How am I going to support myself? I’ll have to eat Top Raman. I hate that! I don’t want to eat that. My license expires in February. February is a really cold month. Help!”

A few days later I received an email saying I emailed the wrong person and I need to call between the hours of 3:00 and 5:00 and wait on hold. Great. Waiting on hold, my favorite thing!

I lived through the lifelong hold and spoke to a really nice man who said all I needed to do was download a form, get one of my principals to sign it and fax it back to him. He would look out for it and take care of the rest. By the end of the week I had a license that was renewed until 2019 for the bargain price of $25.00!

So what I thought was a super storm was really only a speed bump.

My sweet brother-in-law is dealing with brain cancer. My sister is staying home to take care of him. Their whole world is turned upside down. That is a super storm. I send them Light every day.

All or nothing catastrophic thinking gets me in trouble. I learned it from my family of origin where in most cases the crisis was really a super storm and not a speed bump. By working my recovery program I am getting better at seeing the difference between super storms and speed bumps. I am continually reminded that there is a God and it is not me. I’m sure God has more lessons in store for me. Maybe someday I’ll get it.

I live in a beautiful log cabin that is nestled in the beautiful green mountains of Vermont. A lovely brook flows past my house, creating a very peaceful atmosphere. I am very content living in the middle of nowhere. The solitude, serenity and peace of mind it creates suit me quite well. But of course living in the country means learning to live with those wonderful four legged creatures known as mice.  They are not my favorite thing and do not bring me any serenity or peace of mind whatsoever.  Still, one must learn to accept the free gifts that their environment provides, so I do my best.

When I first moved here, I tried those we-love-mice-so-we-won’t-kill-them-just-move-them, mousetraps. That whole process was pointless and obnoxious.  I would find a mouse in the trap, pile him in the car, and relocate him down the street.  Done, right? Wrong. Less than two hours later, he or his wife or whatever is back in the trap again.  He probably beat me home.

They probably consider it their own Adventure Bound reality TV series for mice.

“Hey guess what? Go into that little box and eat the food. You’ll get trapped in there, and pretty soon you’re in the middle of nowhere.  The object of the game is to find your way back to the cabin and get into that box again before the mean lady gets back.  Then when she finds you there she flips out and does it again.  It’s way fun!”

That’s probably what they’re thinking.

I tried decon and that is an even worse idea because they die in the walls and stink forever and ever and ever. Awful rotting corpse smells that even the best air freshener can’t hide.

The sticky traps are just too cruel for me. I couldn’t do that to any animal.

So, I use the old fashioned traps. They are normally very quick and painless for the mouse. Put a little peanut butter on that puppy, and whamo! Done. Throw it out. Put more peanut butter on it and you are ready to go for another round. I’m sorry if I’m offending some of you, but it’s them or me. They are way too destructive. Mice in the house leads to nests, mealy worms, carpenter bees, carpenter ants, woodpeckers and other critters and diseases too numerous to mention. Not worth it.

Well, very early this morning I found a mouse in a trap but he was still alive. I did feel bad for him. I put my coat, boots, hat and gloves on over my jammies and headed out the door to throw him over the bank. I threw him overboard, said a prayer for him and went back in.

I put some new peanut butter on the trap and was getting ready to take it down to the basement again when I found something crawling on my neck.

“What the heck is that?” I yelled as I danced around in horror and fright.

Immediately the coat, gloves, hat and pajama top go flying. There is the mouse sitting on the floor.  I had thrown him down my own back instead of over the bank.  Good one.  I was very grossed out. I then felt compassion for my poor injured friend.

“I’m sorry honey, I don’t mean to be cruel and I’m sorry it has to be this way but you can’t be in my house. That’s the way it is. Live outside and things will go fine.” I then picked him up in a rag and made sure he went over the bank this time.

Okay so I never was good at sports. I can’t really throw anything. Obviously. Maybe that was my punishment for injuring him. Hopefully he won’t come back and visit me in my sleep.

Every once in a while Spirit sends me a message.  I can usually tell when this happens because I will get the same message from two completely unrelated sources. It used to freak me out a little bit but now it just energizes me.

The first time this happened was when a friend of mine first suggested the idea to me that I move from Los Angeles back to my native Vermont. At first I couldn’t imagine the idea. What, me leave my precious Los Angeles? Then we talked about it. What is so precious, the traffic? The two and a half-hour public transportation commute? The people that hassle you after hours on the train? Your ever rising property taxes and mortgage rates? Your stress level at your job? Who couldn’t live without all of that?

I quickly realized my friend was right. I was on anti-depressants and sleeping meds. I was completely stressed out by my commute and my job, which, in the wonderful world of Los Angeles Unified School District, was ever in flux. I had just broken up with a guy that was making me miserable. All I did was complain to her about my job, commute, and basically everything that had to do with the City of Angels.

I was worried though. I really was still trying to make go of it with my music and felt like I needed to be in Los Angeles to do that.

“Juliet, there is this thing now called the Internet. You can live wherever you want. You can have that cabin in the woods like you always wanted.”

I started to smile on the outside and on the inside. Was there any place to play music in Vermont though? What was their music scene like?  Is this something God wants for me or am I jumping the gun? Am I giving up on LA too soon? What if I make the wrong decision? Sigh.

So I told her I would pray about it. I did, all the way home from her office.

I stopped to get the mail on the way home. In my mailbox there was a copy of Vermont Life, with a cover story entitled “Discover Vermont Music.” I got chills down my spine. Okay God, I’m listening.

The second time I received a message from the Spirit from two unrelated sources was this past week. I’ve been listening to and studying the audio version of “Forgotten God,” by Frances Chan, where he talks about the Holy Spirit and how we need to bring it back into our lives and religious institutions. I’ve been praying a lot to the Holy Spirit, asking it to direct everything in my life from decisions to conversations, do my teaching for me, live my life, help me stop obsessing, save my brother-in-law, etc.

Well, ask and ye shall receive.  A few weeks ago I was on the edge of despair over my brother-in-laws illness and my sisters burdens with it.  I was grieving and sad for their situation to the point of codependency.  I was feeling horrible for a week at a time. So my friend called me on it. She said I go beyond sadness and grief into codependency by feeling their feelings.  She also said I need to learn to look at the positive side of everything. I can learn to see the positive in every situation if I only ask for Gods help and practice.  At least he is getting treatment, she said. How great for him to be living in the Bay area where the medicine is some of the best in the nation, instead of in the jungles of Africa. She said I needed to learn to apply this positive thinking to every area of my life.

Okay so I’ll practice that, I said to myself. I’ve been working on it.

This same week I began listening to my copy of  “The Me I Want to Be,” by John Ortberg. John is a minister and author and has put out many awesome books including “Faith and Doubt.” He has a fantastic voice and I recommend getting his books on audio, just for the sake of hearing him speak. Very cool voice and great rhythm of speech.  He definitely keeps your interest.

Mr. Ortberg stated that we have the power to change the way we think. We can approach life from a more positive point of view if we commit to changing our habit of negative thinking. We have to practice replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts. We can do this in all areas of our life and God is there to help. All we have to do is ask. Scripture is there to help too. God wants to help. God wants us to be the best we can be.

I felt the same chills down my spine. Okay God. I’m listening.

I had a really interesting conversation with a close friend of mine yesterday about heaven, hell and purgatory. This talk had been activated by three oil paintings of the same names that I had created over the past weeks.  One looks like what I think heaven would be like, greens, and blues, beautiful, serene, calming, and placid. Purgatory has some reds in it, but also includes a state of brownish, yellow confusion that has not quite given into the red burning state.  Hell has a greenish yell sky with red on the bottom.

So my friend asked me to explain myself. Did I really think there was a hell where, if I’m bad I’ll go there and burn or all eternity? And what is purgatory? If I’m in heaven, am I flying around with a harp and wings?  She then went on to suggest that we create our own heaven, hell and purgatory on this planet.

So what does Juliet think?  I think that heaven is a place that I go to be with God. I’ll be with Christ. It will be a comfortable place. I think hell is a place where I would be separated from God for eternity. That would be lame. I wouldn’t like that. I’m not sure about purgatory in terms of it being another place, unless I am such a confusing messed up case when I get there that they are like, “hold up, we need to get a confused-mess-intervention-team to figure her out. Throw her in purgatory until the committee can convene.”

I do agree with my friend that I have the ability to create my own heaven, purgatory and hell right on this planet. Heaven is lying in my bed at night listening to the train go by. Heaven is also sitting under the stars at Tanglewood listening to music that only God could have created. Heaven is sundried tomato, feta and cheese pizza followed by a really good glass of Cabernet, topped off with a chocolate dessert. Heaven is my music, my writing, my art, and my cabin, my Quaker meeting.  It is the sweet, smiling face of one of my students who comes up to give me a hug and is glad to see me. It is a sweet student who tries their best to play in front of all of their peers. That is heaven.

Purgatory is waiting to hear about how my brother-in-law is doing in his surgery. It is waiting for that stupid, evil tumor of his to go away. Purgatory is spending hours fretting over a violin that someone thinks I lost and I’ve looked in ever classroom, closet, car, truck, boat, plane, trashcan, rock and spaceship to find it. And it is nowhere. Purgatory is me being lost in my defect of indecision, not knowing where to turn next.

My hell on earth is being swallowed up by my defects to character. Low self-esteem and the inner critic run a close race with obsession in this contest. Hell is me lying awake obsessing over a disagreement I had with a friend, or a family member, convinced they will never speak to me again; now they know how truly awful I am, the secret is out and now I’ll be alone forever. Then fear of abandonment and fear of rejection join in on the bullying session. Then I obsess about how I can fix it. Because I am codependent you see and that was part of my job in my family of origin. I was supposed to be perfect and fix it. If I just obsess long enough, I’ll figure it out. I’ll make them love me, I’ll figure out how to beat the cancer; the lost violin will fall right through the roof of my cabin.  If I beat myself up enough, maybe I can turn back the clock and erase that stupid thing I said to my student and not be defensive around them. Hell is feeling helpless over the illness of a loved one or family member. Yes, my defects do create hell on earth.

I find my salvation lies in my creativity. Creating music and art helps me survive.  I always feel better after playing my violin or my guitar.  And writing songs is my lifesaver – lots of songs. Listening to Mozart and Britten also helps me climb out of the hellish pit of depression and helplessness.  That and, of course, surrendering to God.  Surrendering in prayer is essential.

I don’t think I’m headed for a roasting pan. I have to try and avoid putting myself in it right here on earth.  That beautiful, serene, calming, wonderful place called heaven is real to me and I look forward to meeting Christ, shaking Peters hand and taking Paul’s class on Romans. And I’m sure they’ll have plenty of art and music studios there in which I can create whenever I want.  Tanglewood will be there too, of course, heaven style, with plenty of great lawn space, stars, and beautiful music. Sounds heavenly to me. Sign me up.

I am a Quaker. To be quite specific about it, I am eighth generation Quaker. Quakerism abounds from my mother’s side of the family.  I worship with unprogrammed Friends.  For those of you who are not so familiar with Friends (Quakers) practice, unprogrammed Friends meet on Sundays for worship in silence to “Wait on the Lord.” There is no minister. We sit and listen for God’s guidance. When we sense that Spirit has something for us to say to the group, we rise and speak He is telling us to say. Many meetings are conducted almost totally in silence with no messages at all. (Incidentally there are programmed Friends, who do have somewhat of a regular church service with a minister. We are on the other end of the spectrum from that.)

So when it comes to Waiting on the Lord, as we say, or listening for Divine Guidance from that of God that is within us all, I am pretty up on that. I have been an active member of one Quaker Meeting or another for the past twenty-two years now. I have held several service jobs in these meetings, including but not limited to Clerk, Recording Clerk, member of Ministry and Counsel, Peace and Social Justice, Library Committee, and Adult Education. I have led workshops on Quakerism 101 and led singing before or after meeting on Sundays. So I’m not a newbie.

The other day as I was sweating my face off on the cross trainer at my local YMCA, I read another few pages of one of the Quaker texts I’ve been studying, Listening Spirituality Volume II, Corporate Spiritual Practice Among Friends. This is a fantastic book and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in Friends practices. In the particular chapter I was reading, the author was addressing the issues love, care, respect and humility among Meeting members.  The specific passage that caught my eye and got me thinking was portraying the idea that Spirit can help us to become less self-centered, let go of self-will and dedicate ourselves to the well being of others in the Meeting. The purpose to this end would be oneness and harmony with our fellow Quakers.

Sounds great. Count me in. However, as an overly responsible, caretaking codependent, I can pretty much drive that eco-friendly tour bus right off a cliff. You see, as an overly responsible codependent caretaker, everyone is more important than me. I don’t count. In my family of origin I was taught this. I was there to serve everyone else and I was responsible for everything that went wrong. It was my fault. So I hear this “get rid of self-will and don’t be self-centered,” and go one thousand miles in the other direction to the point where I pretty much don’t exist. “Okay, I’m just lame,” I say to myself. “I can’t stick up for myself or matter.  It doesn’t matter what I think or want.”

I took this passage of the book and these ideas, and decided to make amends with a fellow Quaker who has stopped coming to Meeting because of me, she says. So I called her and left a message and apologized. She called while I was leaving the message, so during that time, I apologized again! She said she couldn’t talk then and could she call me back. I suggested some times.  I’ve never heard from her.

Obsessiveness is another one of my defects of character. So I obsessed about this person, my attempted apology and failure for a week. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why couldn’t I just act like a normal human and think, “I did the best I could, I tried, so be it,” and let it go? Because I am codependent.

Now I’m sure the author of this fantastic, must-read book, Listening Spirituality, did not intend for us as readers, to obsess, take on the meeting as our cross to carry, and blame ourselves for everything all the time. Rather, I think she probably means that, as I stated in my last blog, God needs to be in the drivers seat. It’s not about what I, Juliet want. It is about God speaking through us to discern what is best for the Meeting. We are a spiritual family. But it doesn’t mean that I have to lie down and let the eco-friendly Quaker tour bus run over me!

All I have to do is my best. All I have to do is let go of my self-will, and let God speak and act through me to the best of my ability. I don’t have to be perfect, even though Quakers are historically known for striving for perfection.  All I have to do is the best I can to let God’s Light shine through me. I can do that. Breathing might help too. Hopefully when I go overboard and am ready to let the tour bus run over me, my fellow Quakers will help me out and put on the brakes. Loving communities do that. And I love my Quaker Meeting. I am so grateful each and every day to be a member of such a wonderful spiritual group that seeks together to discern and follow the voice of God. I can’t imagine anything more important.

It is always a good idea for me let God be in the drivers seat of my life. I must practice this often by becoming aware of my behaviors, then become willing, surrender and turn it over. I think asking only for the knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out has to be my motto. To do so surely is the gateway to a life of serenity lived in his grace. Much of the time operates my life by remote control without my even being aware of it, directing my body and size ten feet where he wants them to go. It’s cool when that happens.

Last week I found myself almost unbearably burdened by the illness of a loved one. I also had a pile of work on my desk that would choke a horse (some of it is still there, I admit). My goal for the evening was to just sit down and work my tail off until the pile was gone. That was it.

But somehow the bills got paid without the usual hassle. Then the topic for my on-line meeting got posted quite easily.  Somehow the Mt. Everest pile of laundry on the only chair in my house got folded and put away.

Putting God in the drivers seat resulted in Juliet sitting at beautiful, holy, refreshing Tanglewood last Saturday evening instead of staying at home.  I brought my writing with me and did it while sitting on the lawn while I listened to fantastic music. I get so inspired by listening to the performers at this venue. They are all excellent. My creativity level always skyrockets when I am in that space.  And I didn’t direct it. I didn’t plan it or fight it. A a spiritual adviser I am acquainted with said, “let go and let God turn you, then go that direction.” In my experience this day , that worked very well.

I am still so concerned about my sick relative and his burdened family. I am in a constant state of prayer, lifting him up to God for healing, and enlightenment. But I left my precious Tanglewood renewed, uplifted and creatively inspired. And what do you know? I got much of my writing work done.

I am thankful to God for being my Navigator. He drives very well, never gets road rage, never gets lost, has to ask for directions and doesn’t need a GPS. It doesn’t get better than that.

About Suffering

Suffering is defined in the dictionary as undergoing the feelings of pain or distress.  This could be done willingly, as an offering to God, or unwillingly, as a person in pain from a disease.

Why do we have to suffer? I have come to believe that God has us suffer to bring us closer to him.  If we never walked in the darkness, we could not recognize or appreciate the Light.  As humans, we have the tendency to only call on God when we need something, much like the college student, who only calls home when they have run out of money.  We pray when we lose our job, get sick, lose a significant relationship, feel we have been wronged someone, or feel like we just can’t possibly get through another minute of our day.

I have a couple of people who are close to me who have recently been diagnosed with cancer.  Both of them are very kind, sweet, loving, healthy living, and relatively young people.  It is hard to understand why this would happen to such wonderful people. Why not inflict the leader of North Korea with brain cancer? Or maybe that guy who kidnapped those women in Cleveland for ten years?  Or Hitler? Why didn’t he get hit with stage IV prostate cancer?   I know this doesn’t sound very Quakerly of me and I apologize.

I do know this:  there is a God and I am not God.  I know nothing of God’s plans.  He does have a plan for each one of us and that plan is perfect. He has a plan for this universe and for those of us who are followers of Christ and have the wonderful future of eternal life in His presence.  I firmly believe in this afterlife and am looking forward to spending eternity in His presence and finding out the answers to all of these questions.

As a codependent I suffer along with all of my loved ones in that I feel like I am responsible for the their diseases, pain and suffering.  If they hurt, it is my duty to hurt too. It is also my responsibility to fix them. I have to feel their pain and cure their cancer. It sounds crazy, but as a life long codependent that grew up being responsible for everyone else all the time, that is how I think.  Thus I spend a lot of time in anguish and torment. How can I fix it? If I obsess long enough about it I can figure it out, right? Wrong.
So what do I do with all of this? I am not God. I am not a doctor, surgeon, therapist, guru, healer or priest. I am just me. Just your average Josephine trying to walk through this world.

So I do my 12 steps.

1. I admit I am powerless over others, that my life has become unmanageable.  I am obsessing about my loved ones and am in the midst of the codependent crazies.

2. I come to believe that a Power Higher than myself can restore me to sanity.

3. I make the decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understand him. In other words, turn it over, let go and let God.  I didn’t cause it, I can’t cure it.

4.  I make a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself. I am practicing my defects of over responsibility, obsessiveness, compulsiveness, caretaking, feeling other peoples feelings, making other people more important then myself and self abuse, just to name a few.

5.  I admit to God, myself and my sponsor the exact nature of my wrongs.

6.  I become entirely ready for God to remove these defects of character. It doesn’t serve me to try and fix everyone else, obsess about him or her, have my heartache like I was them.  I have enough heartache about all of it enough already.

7. Humbly ask God to remove my defects of character.  I also ask Him to help me through this suffering. I ask Him to heal my loved ones.

8.  Made a list of all people I have harmed and become willing to make amends to them all.  This list is short this time. I am harming myself. I am neglecting myself and overburdening myself by taking the whole world on my shoulders.

9.  Made direct amends whenever possible, except when to do so would injure others.  I forgive myself for judging myself for not being good enough. I forgive myself for not being able to cure cancer. I forgive myself for being healthy when my loved ones are sick.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when I was wrong promptly admitted it. I need to get the focus back on me and what God wants me to do.  I need to do what is in front of me.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God as I understand God, asking only for the knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out. What is my role in this God? Do I have the courage to pray ONLY for God’s will? Do I have the courage to let go of what I want and just focus on what He wants? That takes courage, faith and trust.  I pray for the strength to do this.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, I seek to carry this message to other codependents and to practice these principles in all my affairs.

I surrender.  I humbly recognize that I am merely dust.  God knows all. I know nothing. This entrance into suffering is His way of bringing me closer to Him and needing Him more. I am grateful for these experiences. Although they are very painful, these brushes with mortality, even if they are experienced through others, help the rest of us to remember to live in the moment, cherish the little things in life, and let go of everything else. The only thing that matters for me is to follow God, to pray without ceasing, and to do what I think he is calling me to do.  I read his Word, listen to his voice in Meeting and try and walk the walk as best I can.  Suffering produces fruit.  It makes my faith stronger. It makes each sunrise that much brighter.  I am grateful.  God is always good.

Juliet A. Wright
juliet@hiddenangel.net
Author, publisher, singer/songwriter,teacher.
Author of “Everything Is My Fault,” Singer/Songwriter for two albums “Fearless Moral Inventory” and “Beloved”