x2 Step 69 – Journal Step 68 - I will not lose faith in myself today.

Today:  Step 69 - Today I will practice stillness. (MP3)

Greetings All –

Today I will practice stillness. Step 69

IN YOUR TWO 30-MINUTE PRACTICE PERIODS TODAY, practice stillness. Allow your meditation to be deep. Give yourself to it. Do not enter meditation with demands and requests. Enter meditation to give yourself to it. It is the temple of the True Spirit within you to which you bring yourself. In your practice periods, then, be present and be still. Allow yourself to bathe in the luxury of emptiness. For the presence of God is first experienced as emptiness because it lacks movement, and then within this emptiness, you begin to feel the presence that permeates all things and gives all meaning in life.

PRACTICE STILLNESS TODAY so that you may know.

PRACTICE 69: Two 30-minute practice periods.

Picture:  Greek Orthodox Church Bell Tower, Winchester, Virginia. The bells are still.

From the journal Step 68 - I will not lose faith in myself today.

7:20 a.m. Thursday, October 26, 2000 – I give up. I do not understand myself; the world; life; others; anything. The world is full of moving things, all of which can change, grow, where out, decline, disappear. Stillness is the absolute alternative. It's not my time to go there.

7:55 a.m. My life – my family – we are part of the self organizing, self-managing play out of the creation. To the degree I can become aware, I will contribute. This perspective comes at a time when I'm tired and confused and in transition. I thought I was following spirit. I believed I was doing my small part, yet there's been little success it seems. With S2K – the challenge gets bigger and again I'm a student. At least there is a curriculum –

11:30 p.m. I will not lose faith in myself today. This is been a hard day. Very uncomfortable @ the CAO lunch – Steve returns – PDCs set to score money from many places. I have to retrench. I've had encouragement on my ideas…but still feel lost. … Why am I doing this life? On TV – prison lockup in Colorado – hard and mean souls being dealt with harshly by society. An inmate says you don't have to be super strong when you are super angry.

I'm stuck in the middle. I worked late trying to get things caught up. Still there's more to do. I keep trying to make the region work. That requires being subversive.

Wine tonight, beer last night – life has become frustrating.

…

Fortunately time moves.

At times like this I wait, hope, wish for the answer – those words/thoughts/feelings that would make me at home in the world.

Based on this journal entry, did I lose faith in myself this day? Dumped a lot. You can do the same for yourself as needed in the journal. I did continue and that is what counts. You can’t get this all in one reading, one day of practice or one year of it all together.

Having a sense of progress and the magnitude of the task was beneficial: “With S2K – the challenge gets bigger and again I'm a student. At least there is a curriculum.”  So, there is a curriculum. Let us practice and continue.

NNC

Note: If you’ve some interest due to this or other Steps, you should go to the beginning blog post. From here you will learn about Steps to Knowledge and can begin it on the day that makes sense; then progress as needed. You can use the posts on this blog as a companion if it helps. They will remain in order in the archives - one post per Step.

Often it takes 18 months to get through the Steps once. For this blog, the pace is one-a-day, but it really makes no difference how fast you do it, only that you begin, persist and repeat. Posts here provide a trail that may let you have a virtual companion when and if you want one. One may have to study alone, as I did in the beginning. There are other Steps students blogging their experience and you might find a person more like you as a companion, or use a number of such Steps journeys. There are options as well through the Free School of the New Message.