I have dealt with death before. From suicides to old age, but I have never had a friend murdered before.. It breaks my heart.  I know that ultimately God is incharge of life's beginnings and ends....but it is still hard.   I am so heart broken right now.  I went to a meeting, and it was wonderful and sad. I then went out to eat at the V.I. and spent some time with good people.  Life suddenly feels so fragile and I don't want to miss a moment.  I want all the people in my life to know how much they mean to me.  I want to tell people about Jesus.  I want to share my music and writings with more people because I believe that it talks to us all in different ways.  I don't want to be selfish with my time anymore.  I love so much, and feircely, and I want to let every person that i know how loved and valuable they are.  I don't have time for bitterness or dishonest exchanges any longer.  I only want truth in my life, and i want to be a bright light for those who are still searching. 
I love you God. Thank you for every breath i take. May I do your will always.
If no one told you they loved you today, I do.

Big hugs!!

Diversity

There are many things that I am wondering about today.  I was thinking while i was doing an assignment for my cultural diversity class, that I do hang out with people who aren't just white.  See to me a white person is a white person. A brown perosn is a brown person. A black person is a black person...and so on.  I never held one higher than another, but it was strange for me to see that i do hang out with people from other cultural and racial back grounds.  The question posed from my instructor was "who do you hang out with in your spare time?  are you around mostly people like you?" I origonally wrote that i usually hang around white people. Well  that is not entirely correct.  I found out today that I hang out with people that are of different races, but i never noticed that.  I am part mexican, American Indian, Italian, French, and English. Wow what a mutt! lol And I love it! People that I hang with are mostly light skinned, but that is because of where i live, not whom i chose to hang out with. But they are still Latino, and Asian, and on and on.  That was so kewl for me to realize. I am happliy wrong. Yay. Diversity is a wonderful thing to celebrate. woot woot!!!

Learning How to FLUSH!!

4 out of 5 people suffer with diarrhea, the 5^th person enjoys it! That is just like me and my alcoholism. It shows me that I am happy to be swimming in my own shit. And why wouldn’t I be? That is where I have been living my whole life. Even when I had sober time, I never learned how to flush my own shit. I was sitting there in the bowl and comfortable sitting in my shit. Then one day I learned about this crazy concept of "flushing." This is where you take the shit that you have either been given, or also created yourself, and you let it go down the toilet, and you end up in relatively clean water. What a concept! What makes this possible? I asked. It was this wonderfully shiny thing on the side of the toilet tank that most people refer to as the handle (toilet handle). This handle was way above me, and it took a leap of faith to get to it. I was not sure how to get the faith that I needed, so I sat there still longer marinating in my own shit. There is an interesting thing about shit though; it gets worse, never better. Finally the time came when I was so sick of the shit, that i believed that the handle would take it away. So I took action and stepped forward and pulled the handle on the toilet. To my astonishment, water began pouring from all areas of the bowl, and I could feel a suction beginning to tug on my feet. A great whirlpool began to form all around me, as slowly the bowl was beginning to fill. The bowl was getting filled and the shit wasn't going anywhere! Had I made a terrible mistake? I became overwhelmed and was about to give up all hope. Then, the suction around my feet spread up to my legs, and my arms, and i realized that there was an opening below me and the shit was beginning to flow down. Hooray!!! Just as change is important so is survival. I thought- If I am flushed down the toilet with the shit I will surely either be put in a sanitarium, prison, or die. So I must swim with all my might to fight against the current! So I began to swim with all the energy i possessed. I had many micro moments during this flushing. I realized that my hands and legs moved more freely, that my body wasn't as weighed upon. I also realized that all this time, i had been sitting in my safe shit, when all along i was really sitting upon a large whirl pool of emotion that i never had ever wanted to face. My thoughts that told me i never had a problem now were screaming at me, telling me that I had a huge problem. I was still struggling to not get sucked down into the dark place with all the shit and I thought - for a brief moment - my fighting was futile, and that I was soon going to get sucked down. When suddenly the suction stopped, and I noticed that all the shit was gone. The bowl was still being filled, but with clear water. I stood up, and my arms and legs were tired, but the bad smell, and all the awfulness of my shit was gone. Now only a memory. I had made it! Phew!! I could not believe what had happened. I was so tired, so i sat down in the clear water and finished washing the shit off of myself. As I cleaned up I thought about how long I had allowed myself to sit in that mess. Had it been minutes, hours, days, months, or even years? Well, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, right? I kneel down in the water and thank my higher power for giving me the strength to go through all that had happened. I was truly grateful to not be bogged down in my shit. The bowl is filled to the line with water, and all is silent. I began to speak out loud, and it echoed. I felt the echo inside of my soul. Where all that shit had been, there was a very real and empty part of my soul. I had not noticed this for a long time. For so long I had been filling up the emptiness with so much shit, that i had almost forgotten about it, ALMOST! Now what to do? I began looking around my environment for ways to fill the hole in my chest, and realized that soon, there would be another shadow, and there would be shit once again. I was after all in a toilet, and this is where the assholes came to deposit their shit. I wondered about that now, now that i was clean and could see clearly in all ways around me. I wondered what else I had to do. After all I had flushed, and had survived the rush of current, and now i felt pretty dam good, except for this hole. I remembered hearing once, two people in the bathroom talking about only one thing. That thing was change. They said that their sponsor said they only had to change one thing, and that was everything. I had flushed my shit, but i was still sitting in the toilet. I had changed some things, but not everything. I thought about it for a while, and came to the conclusion that I did need to find a new place to call home. That the flies could no longer be my friends and that i was going to need to learn to flush a whole lot sooner than i had done today. All of these are part of the steps that I needed to take to get out of the shit, and stay out of the shit.

Now I said in the beginning that 4 out of 5 people suffer from diarrhea, and the 5th one enjoys it. Well, it was enjoyable as long as i didn't notice the smell, or the way it made me feel, or the way i looked to others, or the way my family and friends felt about me being there. And definitely not the way that i felt about myself. I thought i was different from other people, that i deserved to be stuck in the shit, and that nothing would ever change that. However, the steps, a sponsor, and a higher power, and perhaps second most important, being rigorously honest - by fully participating in my recovery from the shit - I know that I will still have to visit the bathroom, but I will never have to climb back into the toilet and sit in the shit again. (So long as I stay active in my recovery.) I feel that no matter what comes out it can be flushed. I can see that I am happier and more joyous and free. ... And I am realizing that God is doing for me what I could not do for myself.

-by Bri Malan
October 24, 2011

Gulps of Air

Fingertips ripple off the ceiling

Emerging from the Ivy sea

Shadows speeding closer

-Make haste!-

Fuzzy figures of the outside world

Dance, with distorted images.

Ships? No, too small.

Soft angelic bubbles lift them above,

To the surface.

Blankets of ocean steal the air

pounding with fierce fists of rage

Dragging the hands back, as if to say,

"You are mine forever?"

Ripping through lace and foam,

Determined to be free, fingers

Break through glass surfaces, again.

Ocean has no patience for disobedience.

As a ruler - she becomes the tyrant.

Tidal waves, rise!

In favor of silencing you hers, for

an eternity!

Buoyant and light, waves wash over

Like rain.

Appearing to triumph, palms

Become sure and unshaken.

An eerie calmness settles over the ocean.

Coaxing, flattering the naive

Offering the entire world for a feast;

If hands, fingers, palms, and souls will return,

Then Submit.

Land is found. Support at last!

-Rejection for the heartless sea is

De-lightly painted on the fingernail-

Naive palms face land.

It is the final last, protection.

Feeling dirt beneath the soul

Grinding it between knuckles,

Wonderful!!

Ice in the water begins to melt,

Trembling waves turn into boiling madness.

Scorching the palms!

Scolding their spirits!

Still getting closer, five fingers gain land.

More fierce and intense rises the heat.

"Never will you leave me!" She shouts,

"You belong to me!"

Vigorously panting and scratching the rocks,

Gently hands begin to tire.

Hope is the only strength.

Halfway out of the water, Land partially Embraces the palm.

Lifting them from the sea

Dragging the fingers, so brave, so young.

Tides come up for one last fight.

Then pouncing upon land, she

Captures the index.

Lighting strikes and the lake becomes frozen.

Unbreakable chains commence

Pulling; tearing at the finger.

Feeling an overwhelming sense of

regret and depression, the captive finger

Gives in and submits to the will of Ocean.

***********

Clouds depart sending a

Magnificent blade with tears of love.

It strikes the soul, severing the

Finger from the hand.

Then, those remaining, are carried away.

Covered with years of pain,

Time, the only true healer of an

Open wound, Passes.

Leaving scars wished never to be remembered

Upon a place that will never b e erased.

In the souls of the four young fingers.

"Escape the sea and all her helpers,"

Warn the four strong hands.

"Do not tempt the waters in,

Or your fate may be to be

Buried in the

Depths of the

Ocean."

Addiction

Growling and stubborn – He sits

Branched throughout my soul

Engulfed within the workings of my flesh

He has become my master

Yet, Him I do NOT (!) love

He requires a hard and gruesome task

When left uncompleted

He inflicts pain to the soul – far beyond

The physical pain I am suffering

This devil man is in me a Tyrant!

Holding me too tight – bruising my arms

I gave my resignation

From this slavery and mental sin

I had planned to leave – yet, I am here

I stayed

Maybe I should leave; am I worthy to?

He told my ear to feed my heart poison

“Punishment for your slothful soul!” He shouted

Into my blind eyes.

Nearly 2 thousand years have I served Him.

Letting Him carry me upon a bed of dry thorns,

And rose petals.

“No one else desires your company,”

Harsh voices whisper in my dreams

While he beats my soul to the dust

Reminding me of what I am made of, and

How easy my return would be

For Him, if I leave.

Yet, I must go

Countless tears breakdown walls

That once, they themselves created – but how?

From my prison, I see a rainbow

Just outside the window

I have been out there before, Never stayed.

This is my home

I love Him, and He loves me – but

I can’t love myself

He gets jealous.

I fear being without Him.

I’ve been with Him for so long.

Still, death hath visited with Him oft.

Perhaps He will soon sell me

To this visitor his friend

Then finally all this pain and

Anguish from my heart

Will vanish with my empty soul.

ahem....tap tap tap....is this thing on???

more to come.....