I was born on Easter Sunday, April 14, 1946. The story is that I interrupted my father’s Easter dinner. I was the 6^th of 6, four girls and two boys. My parents met when they were nest door neighbors in Tucson, Arizona.

My mother came from a church family, Baptists, and my father from an unchurhed family, whom I never met until 2000. They were involved in cults, spiritualism and psychic powers. My father was saved at 19. My parents were older (38 and 43) when I was born, and most of my siblings already teenagers. I received a lot of affirmation, attention and unsolicited parenting. And often felt as if I had 7 parents instead of two. Our home was noisy, disorganized and occasionally contentious. I remember huge fights, occasionally physical. This would typically be followed by a weeping, emotional apology session at some point which was as upsetting to me as the contention. I dreaded this emotional scene at least as much as the screaming and hitting. I was a very anxious child, longing for stability, security, peace and order.

Our family was a church family, attending 3 to 5 times a week. I am forever grateful for this early and continuous input of truth. Our love for the Lord was genuine, dysfunctional as we were. I was torn and miserable over my sometimes uncharitable and UnChristlike heart, which I seemed unable to do anything about, though my outward walk had the appearance of righteousness. My father and mother loved the word and were soul winners. My first Bible memory verse was from Psalms, “I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. ” Legalism was rampant in that setting, though grace was the byword of the day. Whether it was said, or more likely implied, I don’t know, but family and personal problems like those of my family were a sure sign of a flawed faith or secret sin, so I kept them secret…we all did. Subtly, oddly, my religion took a turn from love of Christ and worship of God to love of “church” and worship of “righteous behavior’. Only later sorrow and failure would redirect my heart back to right focus.

My salvation experience was at 8 years old. Several years earlier I had been pressured by my well-meaning mother into a “sinner’s prayer”, but I will never forget that Sunday night service when God called me. I knew I was a sinner needing a savior. I knew my family’s churchiness was no help – this was between God and I. I remember my salvation experience in great detail, what I was wearing, where I was sitting in church. I also felt a call to vocational ministry at age 8.

Somehow, however, I missed the truth about the fullness of the spirit, the keeping power of God, the sweetness of undiluted grace that would bring me such joy later on. I was surrounded by sweet and loving examples of humanity for the most part. Youth were highly valued in that church culture and I have such happy memories of activities and friends. My unsaved friends never seemed to have as much fun and joy as we did.

Backtracking, at about 6 years old, I contracted strept throat, which deteriorated quickly into rheumatic fever, an inflammation of the heart muscle with strept, often fatal in those days. I was hospitalized near death and can recall whispered discussions as to whether I would live or not. As our family was extremely poor, I was in the hospital charity ward, meaning my parents could only visit for two hours on Sundays, my siblings not at all. I had never been separated from my family, even overnight. I remained in the hospital for eight long weeks, frightened, lonely, with critically ill children sharing my room for four, and cared for by bitter, surly, overworked nurses. Nights were particularly agonizing, and lonely, with sleep problems that would recur the rest of my life. Ultimately my life was spared and I was sent home for bed rest for 9 months for my heart to heal from its damage, which it did. Miraculously, I have only the slightest murmur. I attended only two weeks of first grade, with a state provided home tutor the rest of the year. I had to learn to walk again the following summer when I was let out of bed, as my muscles had atrophied from disuse. I was filled with gratitude for my returned health and normalcy which remains to this day.

The summer of 1953 was a traumatic one.

About a month after my returned health, my father came home from work in the middle of the day. My mother was stressed, crying and agitated. He silently took to his bed, refusing to talk, and basically remained there for the rest of his life. This malady, for which I had no name at the time, was clinical depression.

That same summer, my siblings and I traveled to Tucson, Arizona, for a favorite uncle’s wedding. We were all to participate as attendants, me as the flower girl. We cheerfully traveled by Greyhound bus to be fitted for outfits, spoiled by doting aunts and grandparents, welcoming the respite from the sad stress at home. Parents were to join us just before the wedding. On a hot August Arizona day, I became aware of a kuffufel and weeping voices. My brother, 15 and sister, 18 and I seven, were sent from the room to the porch. We tried to listen at the door. My brother George went around to the open window to listen and returned sobbing. My father had taken my brothers’ gun and shot himself in our parent’s room. I was consumed with horror at this mental image. At seven years of age I knew nothing of funerals or burial and assumed his body would remain somewhere in the house. It was a terrifying time with the adults hysterical and life spinning out of control.

Our family would be marked permanently by this tragedy. The wedding was cancelled; we rushed home for the emotionally devastating funeral. My self-esteem, already low, plummeted as I translated the act as willing rejection of me by my father. I was shamed and humiliated, and felt my family and myself were forever marked as weird. The shame stayed with me and I would not speak of this to anyone for decades. The mere mention of the word suicide would cause me to have trouble breathing. Only in 2000 I learned that anxiety and emotional problems were prevalent in my father’s family, none of whom I met until recently. His brother suicided over a failed romance only two years later. Clinical depression was common in both sides of the family.

God and our church life were crucial during this painful time. I sometimes felt singled out for troubles, poverty and problems. I was frequently insecure and anxious. I was greatly loved and told so often, however. I was obsessed with appearing normal and fitting in. My troubled mother’s parenting was inconsistent and confusing. At times she would overlook serous character flaws and bad behavior entirely, at other times flying into terrifying rages, yelling spanking and hitting me over minor infractions or perceived disrespect. I could not and did not respect her; tough I loved her dearly and believed she loved me. I felt hatred for my father for his final act and great guilt over my sinful attitude toward both my parents. My family was largely non-smokers and teetotalers, as ardent Baptists, but often medicated emotional pain with food. Interestingly, there is at least one alcoholic “black sheep” in each family unit. In retrospect can I see that I developed a pattern of outward compliance with commensurate inward anger and rebellion, which I contend with to this day. The payoff for this behavior was that it minimized the explosions and overemotional resolutions, which I so dreaded.

In my Christian family, morals were very important. I was protected from the hurts of premarital sex, drugs, tobacco and alcohol by these taboos that were so destructive in the lives of my unbelieving friends. Though I couldn’t get it all right, I thank god for all the truth that was coming in from our church culture lifestyle. I purposed in my heart to stay pure, marry a Christian, and have a happy and normal Christian family someday. I studied other couples and parents and cataloged in my mind how things should be.

In my junior year I met a boy at my sister’s church who was to become my husband. We dated for four years, both attending Biola (Bible Institute of Los Angeles) College for a time. He was interested in full time Christian service with campus crusade for Christ, and we actually double dated with Josh McDowell one time. But he became increasingly bitter against God and his own dysfunctional home and drifted from the Lord. He remained in Church, knowing that dropping out would be a deal breaker as far as our relationship however. My heart became so heavy. I lacked the courage to break it off, though I was increasingly certain this was not God’s will. I was in the strange situation of an unequal yoke with a Christian…a badly backslidden one.

After we married, he went into the Army. Our mutual baggage was a problem, as his indifference increased to open bitterness at God, me and other Christians. He received orders to Viet Nam, which were mysteriously changed to Korea at the last moment. I became pregnant with our first child just before he left. During 13 months of separation, patterns that were to destroy our marriage deepened – communication difficulties, disrespect, and unfaithfulness. He returned in the summer of 1969 and we commenced with a decade of misery, including a miscarriage and two more children. and an ever deepening rift between us.

Thankfully, my children and I stayed in church and became ever closer to the Lord. There were several separations as pornography and unfaithfulness, though unknown to me, became part of our destructive patterns. I became aware of the fullness of the Spirit around this time in the mid to late 70’s in the early days of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and CCSD, later Horizon. I clung tightly to the Lord. My personal season of Grace, or a new understanding of it, had begun during this painful time. My former husband and I separated finally and for good in 1978 and divorced in 1981.

I was a single parent of three for five years. In 1982 I met Ed Nutter, single and an only child. This brave man and I and my three kids became a family in 1983. Our 25^th anniversary will be in 2008. That is a long story for another time. We were both 36 at the time of our marriage and have learned by God’s grace how to live together in peace through struggles.

In 1985 my older brother David had a massive stroke and we moved to Mira Mesa and to care for him. We attended Maranatha Chapel for the next 11 years.

In 1986 we had Jacqui. I was 40 years old. She brought our blended family together in a way. She gave us all someone we loved deeply together.

One day at Von’s in Mira Mesa, a blond lady and I struck up a conversation. I began to realize I was being witnessed to! The woman invited me to church at (then) Gateway Chapel. We had been looking for a new church home knowing that Maranatha was moving north, farther from home than we wanted to worship. I felt at home the very first time I attended a service.

In 1999 I was teaching second grade at Mira Mesa Christian School. There was a particularly stressful time, with the marriage of my son, the beginning of a school year and the sudden death of my nephew in a few short weeks. I stopped sleeping, was experiencing female problems and hormone imbalance and anxiety attacks that made me feel sure I was losing my mind. I collapsed in November of 1999 and commenced a season of intense depression nearly resulting in my hospitalization. I was not suicidal, but obcessed about “disappearing”, I guess that meant leaving earth without hurting any of my loved ones on the way out. The loving people of MMCC brought in food, prayed, visited, I went through dozens of medical tests to see what was wrong. Several body systems were compromised by a complicated combination of things. Several treatments helped the anemia, depression, and anxiety. I still struggle periodically with these things but have never gone back to the severity of those dark months. I was humbled and restored to a new level of maturity.

A common theme of Pastor Bernie Sloan and his wife Janice was that God is in charge of the events of a Christian’s life. I believe that my blessings as well as my losses and past struggles give me a point of contact with people God brings into my life to comfort, pray for, and love. God works in themes in my life and the most recent one is definitely TRUST. I am blessed with examples in scripture and around me of people who trust God in painful times. God mixes the sweetest blessings with the deepest sorrows in his own way to produce increasing Christ likeness us. I am thankful to live less and less by feelings and more and more by faith. I look forward to growth as long as God gives me life.

Remember that as a young woman I felt “singled out for troubles, poverty and misery”?? Well, since God has changed my heart so that it is not “all about me”, these days I am more likely to feel singled out for provision, blessing and joy…and THAT is the miracle of Grace, when it becomes ALL ABOUT GOD!!

-My Dad taught me to read. We had devotions on my mom and dad’s bed every night. Each child took a turn reading a verse in the Bible until we had read the passage. I was so young that I could not read, so Dad would point at a word, I would try to read it, then he would tell me what the word was and I would repeat it. I mostly remember reading Genesis, especially the Joseph story. When I got to school, “Run Dick run was easy for me because I had wrestled with reading words like Melchizedek.

-I could not grow up healthy without other people, namely my parents. I can’t get healthy now all by myself either.

-My parents have both been dead for time measured in decades. For me, the most effective way I can make amends to my parents over the bitterness I kept in my heart toward them as an adult is to be a good man now.

-The love I had for my children did wonders for my ability to know God loved me. For example, I remember when Jill spent a year in France I missed her so much. One day I saw it. Maybe God misses me when I don’t take time for Her. I felt wonder at the thought that  God missed me when I did not spend time with Her.

-When I made a mistake in my parenting, I tried to remember to make amends to my children. I thought that doing that would help them realize that everyone makes lots of mistakes.

-By making amends to my children, I hoped that my children would have an idea of how to deal with things when they made their inevitable mistakes.

-When I was six years old, an older boy beat me up on the way home from school. When my dad saw my condition, he took off running after the boy so he could find out where he lived and talk to the boys parents. That event meant a lot to me. It contributed to my idea that I wanted to protect my children so they could grow up feeling safe.

-Growing up, there was always some friend or family member visiting with us for hours, days and sometimes months. We gave the kids a home to grow up in that always welcomed people. Now they all love hospitality. Thanks Mom and Dad.

-My Dad was forever bringing home a homeless person to feed and give a haircut. It is no wonder that my career was with the homeless.

-When I gave up the bitterness toward my parents that had been so destructive to me, I could learn from the good things they did. I also learned that experiences with my children were the most powerful teaching tools I had.

-For example I never said things like don’t litter very often. Instead, when we went camping in the mountains, we would pick a few hundred yards along a nearby stream and picked it up. We had so much fun doing that. I would have gladly settled for a reasonably clean, but the kids searched, looked under rocks in the stream until they were satisfied that there wasn’t so much as a burned paper match left. They are environmentally conscientious to this day.

- Our family saying was no longer “Do not litter. It became “Leave it cleaner”. We applied that motto to every picnic and camping trip.

-Kids need to believe in their hearts that when they speak their parents hear and respond to them with care and kindness. The program saying applies here. “Say what you mean, mean what you say but don’t say it mean.”

-Insincere, exaggerated praise is a serious mistake because kids may be given hopes for themselves that are  so high they will never be able to have them come to fruition. If that happens, they may develop an unnecessary sense of hopelessness.

-Insincere, exaggerated praise is a serious mistake because kids will sense it an come to doubt your sincere praise.

-One way I made sure that my kids knew they were heard was to say, “Let me tell you what I think you are wanting me to understand.” If I get it wrong, tell me where I missed it so I can get it right”.

-When my kids were small, sometimes they lacked the ability to express their feelings. I expressed their emotions for them by telling them a story I made up to put their emotions into words. In the story, I changed the first letter of each family members name to a “B” so the story featured Bina, Bill, Banelle, BoAnna, Bommy and Baddy. They got a kick out of me naming myself Baddy. I think it frequently defused some of the anger they may have been feeling.

-The retreating goals of my parents forced me to try for perfection because I could never find a way to feel like a good boy.

-I think that the expression I so frequently heard, “Do your best”, also pushed me toward perfectionism. I never could do my best. Now I realize  that no one can ever do their best. I once had a book published. For a long time, I did not make much progress with the writing because I could not write the book I wanted to write. I began to make progress when I finally realized that I had to settle for the book I could write.

-The failure of my parents to show healthy, natural, normal husband and wife physical affection in front of me made sex seem like the ultimate dark secret.

-I felt invaded by my parents. their tendency to run over me made me an excellent boundary setter. The trouble was, that I only knew how to set other people’s boundaries. “If I do this, Mommy will not like it  if I do that, Dad will be angry and spank me real hard.”

That was only the first of thousands of times your sisters found a way to say how thrilled they were over you. In my case, while I have frequently been the proud Papa out in the open, the public  things I have said  are overwhelmed by the millions of times I have treasured you in my heart.

Lots of people wondered if I had a secret wish that you had been a boy. I never had  any such wish. I did not wish for another girl and I did not wish for a boy. Like billions of dads before me, I just wanted our new baby to be healthy.  There you were, my new baby daughter and you were happily, obviously healthy .You were instantly, completely, totally welcomed to the place where you remain today, in my heart.

One time, someone said,” You will never know what it feels like to have a son. “I responded, “I feel sorry for you because you will never know what it’s like to have four daughters”. That is exactly how I still feel. The Universe must have honored that feeling in me, because  I now have two amazing granddaughters as well. I was born to have daughters and granddaughters.

When your Mom told me she was pregnant, I was so happy. I will admit to a little trepidation because we were so strapped for money. I prayed, “Dear God please don’t put me to the test of not having enough money to provide good medical care for my wife and new baby.

That Sunday night at church, we announced that we were expecting, but I neither spoke of nor hinted about my financial fears. The following week the problem was solved.

A woman from our church named Betty Paveglio came by the house to visit us. After the normal chit chat and tea, she told us she had something to say.

She said, “My Jesus told me I was to pay for all the expenses involved in this pregnancy. Let me know when a bill comes in so I can get the money to you. If it is a major expense, I would appreciate you giving me a few days notice.”

After she left, your mom and I began to worry. “I wonder what she meant by that. The hospital bill is so big. Surely she did not want to pay the hospital bill”, but we did not phone her.

A little while later, Betty called us. She said, ” I want to make sure you understood me. I want to pay for the doctor, the hospital bill every vitamin or other medicine you need. Everything.”

I said, “Betty you don’t know what a pregnancy costs these days”.

She laughed and said “I know it has been a long time since I had my children, but I want every single bill”. And she meant it. She joyfully took care of every expense.

When you were about six months old, she came by to see us. As she always did when she came over, she took you on her lap and played with you. Then she said, ” I guess you are old enough for me to tell you my secret. When I told your folks I was going to pay for your coming, I had no idea how I was going to do it. This has been one of the greatest adventures of my life. Every time a big bill needed to be paid,  some extra money somehow came in. The money always got there in time.” We were touched by her courage and her heart.  You can imagine how grateful we were.

Betty earned some of her living money as a foster parent. As things turned out in terms of the work that you grew up to do, I have often thought there was some kind of synchronicity in that.

While you were  still in the hospital, the big decision was who was going to hold you first.  Each of your sisters was determined to have that privilege when you came home. There was no way for me to peaceably make that decision.  Finally I said, “You all will hold her at the same time.” I got a few puzzled looks on that one.

So I explained, “We will draw straws. The longest straw gets to hold her head, the medium straw gets hold her middle and the shortest one will get the feet. After exactly two minutes we will rotate positions to the right and continue doing that till each of you have several turns in each spot. Then I get to hold her. I was very impatient for my turn to come but the fuss your sisters were making admiring their new sister was so endearing that actually ended up enjoying my wait.

From the beginning, while I was admiring the wonder of my baby girl, I had another thought in my mind. I kept saying to myself, “I wonder what it is going to be like to someday be talking to JoAnna  adult to adult. Thinking about that fascinated me.

I can tell you now talking to you as an adult is an enjoyable, engrossing and  delightful experience for me. I am so proud of you. Coming from the childhood I had, to see you so involved  bettering the experience of children in our society moves me.

You had a darling smile. It never failed to amuse me. Once, the family went to Aunt Evelyn’s in Virginia. We all loved your smile so much that  your entire family  spent the first fifteen minutes we were there getting you to smile. We loved showing off our baby.

When you were three or four, the family had a fun beach day. Your mom turned to me and said “Watch how JoAnna gets things organized”.

You were digging a hole in the sand. Gradually, a group of kids were gathered around you wanting to dig a hole with you. Some of the kids were considerably older that you. Pretty soon you said something like, “We need to get the sand around the hole back away from the hole”. Immediately, two or three of the children jumped on the project and kept the sand back from the hole from then on.

At various times at your high school you showed your natural leadership. You never led in a dominating way. In fact, it looked to me like you had no intention whatsoever of leading. Leading situations just came your way without you asking for it at all.

At your graduation some or even most of the students were acting up. The graduating seniors were a small enough group that they could all sit on the platform. There must have been twenty or twenty five of the students on the stage with cans of Silly String.  Silly String was flying all over the place. I think it was a natural reaction to four years of an over controlling  school administration. The faculty could do nothing to stop the Silly String play.

It came time for you to make your speech. You took your place at the podium.  Then you turned around and looked at the fun your fellow students were having. You thoroughly enjoyed it. You watched it for a little while and then while still facing the students you casually lifted your hands in an “It is time to stop the playing around” motion. The confusion ended immediately and you turned back to the audience and calmly and effectively made your speech. You had the audience in the palm of your hands.

Then there was the time that the administration took an unkind and unjust stand over the girl that got pregnant. There was a grassroots student uprising organized in which you participated but did not lead. Midday, the students met in  open space in the middle of the campus. The protest was not rowdy but it was very determined.

Someone had notified the local press so there were reporters there. The reporters asked, “Who is the leader here”.

To your surprise, all the students turned and looked at you.  When you told me about it, you said, ” All I could see was eyes looking at me”. Then you gave a statement that made the newspapers.

The school was very image conscious. As a result of the newspaper coverage, the school modified their stance against the pregnant girl. The modification was neither  fully kind or fully just, but it did improve the girl’s situation. I am sure the kindness,  justice and support of her fellow students was the thing that was most healing for her. I certainly was one proud Dad.

Then there were the Virgin Mary roles in the sister plays; the week we spent trying to understand a William Faulkner story. Our conclusions about Faulkner’s story that completely changed how I understood the limitations of words, especially Biblical words. Also, there was the total joy of spending an entire Saturday with you doing errands and talking. We shared good times and hard times, both yours and mine. We mostly just enjoyed each others company.

You have always loved learning, both learning yourself but now also making it possible for people  to learn,  about the needs of children. Curt Simmons was a great Major League pitcher. Hank Aaron was one of the best hitters ever, Curt Simmons once said, “Trying to sneak a fastball past Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sun past a rooster.” When you were growing up, My saying was “Sneaking a fact past JoAnna is like sneaking the sun past a rooster”. I remember you coming to me during your early  days at UCI with tears of frustration in your eyes saying, “Dad, I just don’t have the time to learn all there is to learn in my classes. All the recommended books look so interesting.”

I explained to you that one of the most important functions of college was to help you figure the field that was your passion. Then you would have the opportunity to learn as much you wanted to about any field that had the power to hold your interest. The good news in your case, is that any interest you would like to explore is wide open because of your intellect and your powerful emotional drive.

With Love, and Joy,  Dad

-Faith comes by hearing and hearing from the word of God. So says Paul in Romans. The word of God I have heard in meetings has brought faith to me.

- Humility comes to me as I accept my limitations. Humiliation has come to me in the situations where my very person hood is attacked.

-The primary limitation that I need to accept daily, is that I can not deal with life on earth by myself.

-A newcomer to my program asked me how I began the journey toward surrender to God. I responded with a grin and said, “I tried everything I could think of to avoid trusting my Higher Power. When I ran out of things to try I was at the point of of either starting to learn to surrender or  to die. Being the bright sort of fellow I am I began my life of growing surrender.

-Probably, my most intimidating barrier to trust was the inability to believe God could care about anyone as messed up as me.

-My first prayer of surrender was, “God, if you can do anything with this mess you are welcome to it.” To my utter surprise, She took me into her arms like I was a priceless little child.

-One thing that has helped me accept the love of my Higher Power was to think of Her as a woman. That idea of my Higher Power as a woman has been powerfully reinforced by the loving, nearly adoring, look in the eyes of the women in the rooms. I am thinking right now of a particular young women named Lisa I talked to at a meeting last Sunday. She said “Hi Mister George.”

I was shocked at her using the title Mister and I guess she noticed. Then she said “You deserve to have me    call you Mister because you have helped me so much”. I was touched by her words but the tenderness in her eyes was the thing that was so healing.

-God has trusted the entire earth to mankind’s care. I don’t think we are not doing all that great a job. Science is warning us that we need to shape up. I wish I had the faith in  God that She has in us.

-The first thing I need in order to set meaningful boundaries is a powerful determination to be myself.

-The most basic boundary is giving myself permission to say no.

-In setting my boundaries, my need to explain why I set the boundary undermines the believability of the boundary. I may want to give an explanation, but if I am afraid not to explain and justify, you may sense my fear and  want to see if I can be backed down.

-When I was growing up, i set many boundaries; all for other people. “If I do that, she will be mad at me.”  Or  “She likes it when I do that, therefore I have to always remember to do that”.

-The trouble of surviving by constantly searching for what the other person wants is that it leads to a life style in which I am defenseless. If I am searching for clues to what the other people want, I have to take in every nuance of their words, actions, and demeanors into myself. If I do that, I necessarily absorb every negative idea that comes my way.

-If I am trying to please people and not myself, I tend to overestimate the damage potential of other people because I add my negative imagination to what was actually done and said.

-I do better when I do not try to set rigid boundaries. All my boundaries should spring from the 11th step; that is from a search for God,s will. There may be occasions where I want to give up a boundary temporarily. However, It is better if I do not sacrifice a boundary to fear.

-Boundaries based on the gifts of the program tend to be informed by flexibility and love.

- I am better off if I select boundaries that depend solely upon me. “You have to stop screaming at me” is a boundary that depends upon your willingness to comply. “If you scream at me I will simply hang up”, is a boundary that gives me control of my own situation.

-Some boundaries don’t have to be spoken. In that case, my behavior and not my words let you know what behaviors are not acceptable to me.

-I do not think I can effectively set boundaries if I fight against or resent your boundaries.

-Boundaries have a tendency to set both people free.

-I After I shared, I was filled with dread because I did not think my pitch was perfectly delivered.

-I hate seeing that I have not perfectly dealt with my perfectionism.

-My humanity is included in the love covenant I have with my Higher Power. To my surprise, She only wants me to be fully human. In other words, my Higher power only wants me to be exactly the person I actually am,  She wants me to thoroughly accept and love myself.

-Maybe the perfect solution to perfectionism is believing, ” I’m not OK, you are not OK, but that”s OK.”

-At my funeral, no one will say, “What a wonderful man George was. He was always right.”

-My strategy as a boy was to figure out what it was my mother wanted from me. I would say to myself, “She is very angry. If I can figure out what I did to make her so angry, I would never do it again. Conversely, sometimes I said, “She’s  being nice now. If I could figure out what I did to make her happy I would always do it.” That was definitely my onramp to perfectionism.

-Unfortunately, if I had found a way to always do it right, that would have been a major problem for my Mom. That’s because what she wanted from me was not for me to be the perfect son, she wanted me to be available so I could be the target for her anger.

-One of the ways she managed to keep me available, was to keep changing the rules. The boy she wanted me to be at noon today, was not going to be the boy she was going to want me to be that evening.

-She was nice to me often enough to keep me hooked.’

-Sometimes I have said,”I am only an expert in one area. I am an expert at knowing what does not work. Maybe saying that is one more expression of my perfectionism.

-I have learned that falling into the mud is not my problem. Everybody does that. My problem is staying for a swim.

-When I first came into the program an experienced program member watched for the times I would beat myself up with a verbal baseball bat. Then she would hand me a silver dollar and say, ” I have purchased that bat. Now it is mine and you can’t ever use  it again”. I made a lot of money.

-My really good friend Nicole and I have an agreement. If she hears me make a derogatory joke or statement about myself, she has the right to demand I make three affirmations about myself. It works the other way too. if she speaks in a derogatory way about herself, she owes me three affirmations. This little game has brought us some fun moments.

-I have become persuaded that all my character defects are driven by shame. Therefore shaming myself when I do I do something wrong only serves to make repeating the shame producing activities a certainty.

-Shame is the gasoline that keeps the car of my character defects running. I can’t get rid of that car, but I can keep the fool thing out of gas.

-In other words, if I stubbornly hang on to my serenity by using my program tools, I can gradually escape the prison of shame in which I have lived most of my life.

-When I first started my recovery, I often listed the things I was afraid of in the morning. That evening, I reexamined my list and noted how many of my morning fears had proven groundless. Then I would pray, “God, I give myself permission to be afraid again in the morning and not feel guilty.  Please help me to turn things over to you enough to rest well tonight. I repeated that process for months or weeks at a time. This process was very helpful to me.

-A good many of my evening fears came from a prayer I said every night when I was a boy that included the line, “…If I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul you to take.” It was not appropriate for me as a young boy to go to sleep each night wondering if I was going to die.

-Worse, what would happen to me if the Lord chose “…My soul not to take”. I needed to feel totally received by my parents to help me deal with the reality that I felt absolutely dependent on them for my survival. Because I was so young, I was not conscious of these fears . Nevertheless, this prayer only served to deepen my distress.

-That prayer also gave me a fear of life after death that I could not even begin to get into words because of my youth. Without the parental bonding I so desperately needed, that vague but stalking fear of eternal abandonment could only grow stronger as I grew older.

-The only comfort I have found for that stalking abandonment fear is the daily, intimate fellowship with God that the 12 Step people call conscious contact.

-The word “conscious” in the phrase conscious contact has two meanings for me. The first meeting has to do with the fact that I consciously set time apart each day  to learn to enjoy God. The second is that moment by moment sense that  I never have to pray God in from Chicago. She is always there.

-Fear can be successfully suppressed if the purpose is to help me deal with a situation that needs total focus.

-However, if that suppressed fear is not brought out in the open after the immediate threat is passed, the fear can stay inside me to do damage.

-If I use my Higher Power and my friends to help me process my tension, then I can accept and enjoy the reality that I successfully handled a tough situation.

-Using my recovery tools in that way, trains into me a growing confidence in and respect for myself.

-”Do your best’ is a threatening idea. I guess I feel that way because growing up, I did my best to do my best and it was never good enough. “Now My aim is to the best I can today given my situation and the resources available.

-My folks did their best  and it was a shitty job.

-Doing my best is also boring because it implies that I will never be better. if I have already done my best my best will never be better than what I did today. I prefer the idea of getting better and better for the rest of my life.

-In the past, people were very critical of me. The result was I did not trust process. If I could not do it well immediately, I would just quit.

-Sometimes, especially when I am doing something new, I feel like the way I am doing it wrong is better than the way some people are not doing it right.

-Anything worth doing is worth doing my way. That certainly includes recovery. In fact, I am going to do it my way until The fellowship demonstrates there is a better way to do it that will help me achieve my own goals for my own sake. I think the term to used here is enlightened self interest.

-Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.

-Young man’s disease is the idea that your basic choice in life is between slow progress and fast progress. The fact is my choice is between slow process and no progress. If I reject slow progress and fall to the false allure of fast progress, I end up with no progress or even regression.

-The good thing about slow progress is that it is a progress I am likely to keep. Fast progress comes to me quickly and tends to leave me quickly.

-Life gets more difficult for me as I age. I lose physically, my mind slows down,  and friends and family die. If I just stay at my current level of maturity, the difficulties of life will ultimately outstrip my strength as I get older. That is true no matter how strong I am emotionally today.

-At 71, what I see is that the gains in wisdom and serenity I experience through growth amply compensate for the losses I experience because I am aging. For example, a year ago I told my daughter that I loved her two beautiful daughters  more than I loved her at the same age. Jill and her sisters have never breathed a breath  when I did not love them with all my heart, but when they were children, my heart was  shrunken by fear, shame, inferiority and anger. today,my emotional evolution through program has given me a vastly larger ability to love.

Who were smart, wise and wondrously fair.

They gave me my “Bad Jokey” name,

That shows the source of my fame.

It’s my hope that I can soon see their lair.

—GMC

-

When I was a very young girl

I had a cat white as a pearl.

After his nap

He would sit in my lap

and there in a ball he would curl.

—Parker, Greta. GMC

-

There once was an old dude named Burt,

Who found a tall flower  that would squirt.

He bent down to smell

It is too sad to tell,

That his face ended up in the Dirt.

Parker, Greta, GMC

-

There was an old dude name Bad Jokey,

Who had a pet cat named Smokey

He came in to sit,

And got thrown in a fit,

‘Cause he found that his cat was all pokey.

Parker, Greta, GMC

-

There was a young dude named Eric,

Who did not have a cousin named Derek.

When he came in the room,

He filled us with gloom,

‘Cause his farts gave us  need for some air wick.

Parker, Greta, GMC

-

I know a cool woman named Nicole,

To be her friend is my goal.

She often wears her blue shower shoes,

Sadly one of her shoes she does lose.

I think it was devoured by Joel.

GMC

I have a daughter named Jill,
For her smoothies I would kill.
I don’t care what she puts in it,
MMM, she may even gin it.
Without one I feel pickled in dill.

To NKS
Nancy’s sense of humor is in bad trouble
Maybe because mine is worse at least double.
Still  she is a woman of character and strength.
In her praise I would go any length.
To see that you don’t need the Hubble.