Tag Archives: Twelve Steps

Live and let live: Ishmael

February 2, 2023Homelessness, The William Tell Show, Thursday postsAlcoholics Anonymous, Live and let live, Recovery, Take things in stride, Twelve StepsWilliam Tell

Wednesday 2016-01-06

“Live and let live” is a Recovery principle. In recent weeks, it has been “in my face” from many different directions:

Recent challenges I’ve faced in managing my own feelings, have made me less judgmental of others who seem to me not to manage their feelings well.
Pastor and I are not on the same page concerning the concept of justice. He is thus prone to say certain things in sermons that I don’t necessarily want to hear. But I am in no position to demand that he abandon what is, for him, an honest and impassioned point of view.
Something in Jamilah King’s 12-16-15 .mic article hurt my feelings. I have not yet re-read it to determine what specifically it was. But if the mere expression of an opinion about social conditions can evoke that response from me, it does not bode well for what I hope to accomplish as William Tell the talk show host. William Tell must be able to “Live and let live.”

Ishmael showed up at the shelter for the first time last night. When he joined us in the crowd across the street waiting admission, his face said he’d already had a hard day. Something told me he might be a screwball.

Continue reading Live and let live: Ishmael →

Podcast — The Way of Peace

June 7, 2022Podcast, The Way of Peace, The William Tell ShowBarclay, Donald Trump, Fani Willis, Here - Now - Can, Jesus, Keep the focus on you, One day at a time, Presence, Twelve StepsWilliam Tell

I’ve just re-published my book. Check it out!

The Way of Peace

Music: Ringo Starr, “It don’t come easy”

Continue reading Podcast — The Way of Peace →

10. Strategies

May 18, 2022The Way of PeaceAcceptance, Addiction, Ambrose Worrall, Choosing feelings, Choosing happiness, Choosing thoughts, Pollyanna, Presence, Recovery, Self-management, Silentium Altum (Deep Silence), Sublimation, Twelve StepsWilliam Tell

THE WAY OF PEACE

← 8. Heart and soul

Home

11. Tactics →

Strategies pertain to long-range goals, or a basic posture one means to maintain over a long period of time. Tactics are plans of what to do from moment to moment. In this chapter and the next I set forth the strategies and tactics known to me, that I personally use. Continue reading 10. Strategies →

Appendix

May 4, 2022The Way of PeaceSerenity prayer, Twelve StepsWilliam Tell

THE WAY OF PEACE

← About Edgar Cayce’s dream

Home

Alphabetical list of passage titles →

The Serenity Prayer

God, grant me
the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can, and
the wisdom to know the difference.

The Twelve Steps

THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Verna Moeller, saint in light

April 23, 2022OUR BEST POSTS, The Way of Peace1968 Baltimore riots, Acceptance, Conservatives, Karma, Olga Worrall, Prayer, Reactionaries, Reincarnation, Spiritual healing, Twelve Steps, Unanswered prayer, Verna Moeller, White flightWilliam Tell

We can change history.

My daily prayer time begins with prayer for various chronic health conditions. The last one on the list is my right ear: for years, I’ve had significant hearing loss in that ear resulting from a patulous eustachian tube. I believe my youngest brother, my mother, and her mother all have or had the same thing in the same ear also.

One morning, I came to that point in my prayers, and stopped. I noted that I have prayed for that condition every day for many years, and there has never been any change. I said, maybe this is no more likely to be healed in this life, than Verna Moeller’s disfigurement was likely to be healed in this life. She is beyond the veil, now, but at that moment I devoted significant time and energy to her healing.

Continue reading Verna Moeller, saint in light →

I don’t believe in belief. Here’s why.

October 14, 2021Bible, Homelessness, Thursday postsBelief, Believe, Delusions, Dual diagnosis, Faith, Heart and soul, Prayer, Twelve StepsWilliam Tell

Arnie (not his real name) has been the sole student of my course on effective prayer.

Sunday after church he told me he’d found a couple online resources about effective prayer, that he hoped we could review together. Each of them begins with the necessity of “belief.”

When he said this, I became nervous. There are many such sources online, but I’m not comfortable with them. On the one hand, trying to make myself “believe” that the outcome I pray for is inevitable, feels too much like wading into the world of delusion. On the other hand, although there are many New Testament references to “belief” in connection with prayer, I’m convinced that either (a) those expressions don’t come from the historical Jesus himself, or else (b) Jesus used that term to mean something very different from what we normally take it to mean today.

None of those whom I regard as experts in the field ever refer to belief this way. Never. Not once. Ever.

By Monday afternoon, I would feel my reservations had been powerfully confirmed.

Keep the focus on you

March 28, 2019Get on your feet, Homelessness, Job search/Job prospects, Motivations, OUR BEST POSTS, Thursday postsChoosing thoughts, Homeless, Keep the focus on you, The Homeless Blogger, Twelve StepsWilliam Tell

(Originally published 09/15/12 at Trojan Horse Productions. Reblogged 06/25/14.)

Teddy is an old man. He wears a rosary around his neck, and never fails to “testify” in chapel. “I talk to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost every day,” he says. Every time there’s an altar call, he runs right up there to get born-again — again. Five times a week, he’ll do that.

He got barred out a year ago for selling someone oxycontin.

Friday night 09/07/12, he came back. He insists to everyone that he’s never been here before, and said he wants to get into the program.

Aside from those things, he hasn’t changed at all. Still all the same empty religious talk.

Sunday night he said he changed his mind about the program. They require you to sign over all your benefits, and he’s not willing to do that. That tells me you don’t want to get well.

I get bad feelings every time I see him.

———— ♦ ————

Sitting outside waiting to be let in, Wednesday 08/29/12 Fallon and a couple other guys I don’t like too much got into reminiscing about how this shelter used to be, years ago, before the renovation. This upset me.

Continue reading Keep the focus on you →

The Twelve Steps

April 20, 2017Get on your feet, The Way of PeaceA.A., Alcoholics Anonymous, Amends, Confession, Conversion, Defects of character, Higher Power, Inventory, Meditation, Prayer, Presence, Repentance, The Homeless Blogger, Twelve StepsWilliam Tell

THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

(Originally posted 11/30/13.)
on air talent, talk show host, radio talk show, the homeless blogger

* Live and let live: Ishmael

January 9, 2016Homelessness, The William Tell ShowAlcoholics Anonymous, Live and let live, Recovery, Take things in stride, Twelve StepsWilliam Tell

Wednesday 2016-01-06

“Live and let live” is a Recovery principle. In recent weeks, it has been “in my face” from many different directions:

Recent challenges I’ve faced in managing my own feelings, have made me less judgmental of others who seem to me not to manage their feelings well.
Pastor and I are not on the same page concerning the concept of justice. He is thus prone to say certain things in sermons that I don’t necessarily want to hear. But I am in no position to demand that he abandon what is, for him, an honest and impassioned point of view.
Something in Jamilah King’s 12-16-15 .mic article hurt my feelings. I have not yet re-read it to determine what specifically it was. But if the mere expression of an opinion about social conditions can evoke that response from me, it does not bode well for what I hope to accomplish as William Tell the talk show host. William Tell must be able to “Live and let live.”

Continue reading * Live and let live: Ishmael →

* I don’t believe in belief. Here’s why.

June 20, 2015Bible, HomelessnessBelief, Believe, Delusions, Dual diagnosis, Faith, Heart and soul, Prayer, Twelve StepsWilliam Tell

Arnie (not his real name) has been the sole student of my course on effective prayer.

Sunday after church he told me he’d found a couple online resources about effective prayer, that he hoped we could review together. Each of them begins with the necessity of “belief.”

None of those whom I regard as experts in the field ever refer to belief this way. Never. Not once. Ever.

By Monday afternoon, I would feel my reservations had been powerfully confirmed.