Spring is for Lovers

Here’s some random thoughts five weeks before I plan to leave.

1) Spring is definitely for lovers. It’s the only time of year I completely understand Hitchcock’s Ms. Lonelyheart. (Bonus points if you know the movie)

2) Sometimes life has a way of surprising even the most prepared.

3) This links up with #1 – last night I found my “Love Wins” bumper sticker and it’s amazing how two little words can have such a drastic effect on my thinking.

4) Several times this week as I’ve been preparing the van and categorizing what I will bring with me I’ve secretly said to myself ‘Holy S@*t” I’m really going to do this.

5) Linking up again with #1 & #3 – I love my nieces and nephews and my friends’ children, but only recently have I felt I’m missing part of my calling by not yet having children. Knowing that it’d probably help to be in a relationship with someone (which I’m not right now) & knowing that I generally choose women I’m not willing to completely reveal myself to, I’m including the relationship prayer I say everyday (sometimes I say it many times throughout the day): “God, please prepare my heart for the one you intend me to be with, while preparing her heart for mine, Amen.” 

A broken picker cannot fix a broken picker, the best it can do is use delusion to mask its broken-ness.

peace.

The Day ‘Whitey’ Died

Today I drove “Whitey’ to her (almost) final resting place – the scrapyard.

It was quite an excursion, driving twenty miles to place her at the hands of the metal collector gods. A few miles in I noticed the gas gauge was on ‘E.’ Then I went back and forth in my mind deciding whether I needed to get gas. I decided to put $2 in the tank, and then had a tough time getting her started again.

After a few minutes it started, but with a splatter of sputters, and a few puffs of smoke. And then it happened: within a few feet of leaving the gas pump, the smoke started in through ‘Whitey’s’ internal hump. About eight miles out the smoke increased and the van’s speed decreased down to about 45 mph. It was quite a site if you can imagine: smoke billowing out from under the van and from my open window, while I’m driving with my head stuck out the window and my eyes oscillating between the angry mob of cars behind me and the few miles to pay dirt.

I felt a little light headed when I arrived, but we did make it!

The financials – I purchased Whitey for $850, put about $100 into it, then sold it for a down payment of $100, then took it back for $0 when the buyer blew it up, then traded it at the scrapyard for $753. If my math is correct I lost a total of $97 overall. Not bad considering that if I hadn’t first bought this van, I would have never found my current van.

peace.

Fears revisited

Over the past few days I’ve noticed fear knocking on the door to my ego quite often.

The two that seem to stand out the most are:

The fear of what will I do when I return to Mt. Pleasant after the trip (of which I might add I haven’t even started yet). This fear seems to be a mask for two other fears (1) fear of what others will think of me and (2) fear of failure. And since fear of failure breaks down to fear of what others will think of me, it’s really all about others. This fear reminds me that I should fear more what God (all love) thinks of me rather than what people think of me. Plus as I do feel led to this trip, I also feel God will take care of me upon my return – and yes I do plan to return to Mt. Pleasant.

The fear of delusion. Until now I hadn’t given this fear much thought, but it tends to be true to some extent. I’ve always believed that I have a deep desire to be loving and helpful to all people, but that my mind (or ego) plays tricks on me. Fear is one example of it’s tricks. Others include: belief in separation, need for rewards or accolades, and believing I know what I think I know. Anyway there’s many ways my mind tricks me, and I really believe that when I’m not connected to God (love) my mind can lead me astray. The greatest help that I’ve found while living in man’s world is being of service to others.

That reminds me of a thought ,or epiphany as I liked to call them back then, I had in a meeting in my first few years of sobriety: “Fear doesn’t exist until my mind makes it up.”

peace.

Getting Road Ready

I met with my miracle mechanic today and set THE APPOINTMENT for next Wednesday.

This is the appointment to complete the final mechanical work to make the van [I've decided Raw Amber is no name for a van] ready for the trip.

Among the list of possible work: driver’s side door (doesn’t close completely and lets rain in); driver’s side window (the power window does not work – so it’s eternally up); oil change; fluid check/flush; tune up; a/c repair; reattaching the ladder; finalizing the elimination of the back seats (only if I haven’t found a way to get the remaining parts out before next week).

peace.

Gas Prices

When I wrote my original budget I had accounted for $3.45 / gallon even though the price of gas at that time was around $3.20 – $3.35 / gallon.

Now that the price of gas has reached $3.45 / gallon and consistently rising, I’m beginning to have concern for that [largest] part of my budget.

I’m not going to worry about the price of gas once I’m on my trip, but I may have to make the necessary modifications to the budget and the trip.

Possible modifications may include: travelling fewer miles, praying for lower gas prices in the states I visit, or running the van on used vegetable oil. Since I don’t have a diesel engine, and since I pray only for the knowledge of God’s will and the power to carry that out, I guess I’ll have to settle for travelling fewer miles.

peace.

The Story of ‘Whitey’

“Whitey’ was my first great hope [van] that I bought in Lansing for $850. Add another $100 for title tranfer, gas, and tags and my total investment for ‘Whitey’ is around $950.

After my mechanic gave me the thumbs down sign – I bought the second van [Raw Amber]. But that’s just the beginning of this story. As the great Paul Harvey would say, here’s the rest of the story:

I sold ‘Whitey’ to a couple with three kids. They had almost no money, so we made an agreement that when they came up with $100 they could pick up the van and then we’d work out a payment agreement. And that’s exactly what happened.

I really hoped the van would be great for their family, but I received a phone call today that brought that hope tumbling down. The van’s engine had ‘blown up’ [not real sure what that means - but it seems to be a huge problem when it comes to driving the thing]. I decided to take back the van and let them out of their agreement. We both agreed that I should keep the $100 they paid me – so my investment [fast turning instead into an expense] is back to $850.

My plans are to take it to the scrapyard and bite the bullet for a loss and just be done with the thing. I’ll update just how much I lost when I make it to the scrapyard.

peace.

Radio

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain” –Bob Marley

I love music. When I was a child music was my first escape from a world i thought was so cruel and uncaring. Today I love all kinds of music: rock, country, dance, rap, oldies, 80s, and even slow sappy songs.

That’s why I knew the first modification to the van would be to replace the am/fm/cassette with a cd player.

Now the funny (or is that delusional?) part – I wanted to put it in myself. For $125 I had a radio, installation kit, and all the necessary brackets, harnesses, etc. I spent a few days fiddling for several hours and then went back to the auto store where I purchased the radio to seek guidance. They showed me that I had the wrong harness, so I changed that but still I couldn’t get the radio to work. So after nearly a week of fiddling I dropped in to ABC Warehouse and selected a new radio listed as $79 installed.

Taxes brought the total near $88, and I was secretly relieved to have the professionals install the thing. It was supposed to take only 30 minutes, but it was over an hour and a half – no problem though, I was still excited to jam some tunes in Raw Amber (that’s the vans name right now, we’ll see if it sticks).

I drove R.A. home, singing loudly to some country tune. When I got home I noticed the face of the radio was pointing to the sky instead of straight ahead. Upon further investigation I noticed that the radio wasn’t connected to anything other than the wires. So it took them 1 1/2 hours to disconnect the wires from the old radio and connect the new one. Instead of going back I spent about another hour mounting the radio myself.

Now we have music. Get Up! Stand Up!

Let there be music and

peace.

Leggo my Ego

So I was looking back at my teaser post about the book, when I realized just how foreign the statement “outgrow ego” seemed when I first heard it, so I figured I’d put down what I believe it means – which is no indication of what the man I’m chasing may believe it to mean.

To me outgrowing one’s ego is also known as the death of self. Not the physical death, but rather the death of one’s selfishness, self-centeredness, and basically self-absorption with one’s own thoughts, beliefs, wants, needs, and feelings. It’s a transformation to a life of selflessness. Altruism. A life of service. To lay aside personal desires. The commitment to love everyone God puts in our path (life) today. The commitment to continued open-mindedness while seeking to grow closer to God (love).

A life changed from self-centered to other-centered. Remembering always that Love Wins.

peace.

What I believe

I thought it might be time to share my current beliefs. By current I mean in this moment, as changes may – and often do occur well before I recognize them. But they are always based on the idea that the purpose of life is to spread love by being of maximum service to God and other people. By the way – I fall short of this ideal every day.

I believe there is a God who is all powerful and all love. I believe that nothing happens in God’s world by mistake, but there are many things that happen in man’s world of free will that God works with after the fact to help others (help others = spreading love). I also believe that God accepts our free will and therefore isn’t concerned with trivialities like what name we call Him. He is more concerned that we do call upon Him.

I also believe that anything that speaks of separation is from man, not from God.

Now to us – the people of the free will:

I believe that everybody is doing their absolute best everyday based on how spiritually awake/asleep they are, or if you wish - on how connected to God they are. And there is no way to cause harm to another person unless one is in fact spiritually asleep. Therefore the best we can do to spread love to those who cause harm is to become more spiritually awake ourselves.

I also believe that it is more important to watch a man’s feet than it is to watch his lips.

peace.

In Search of 1700

I suppose it’s time to talk a bit about the book.

The working title is ‘In Search of 1700′ and it’s about a man who disappeared while on a quest to outgrow his own ego. No one knows for sure what happened to him and his body has never been found.

The purpose of the book is to track down his bread crumbs and unearth what he learned while on pilgrimage to the death of his ego.

As the years have passed we still know very little about him, and even less about his journey.

I only hope to learn more.

peace.