Steering a course

The acorns are falling from the trees, making pinging sounds as they hit the roof and the deck.  A recovery friend is trying to grow oaks from acorns. He plants them in containers, waters, and checks to see if the acorns have produced a seedling.  His goal is to plant oak trees around his house.  His goal is laudable and his enthusiasm brings a smile.  He has not been successful at much in this life, so I hope that an oak will peek through the soil eventually.

Another recovery friend is once again seeking shelter after having rented a room with a woman who had a couple of months of sobriety.  She has relapsed badly, been arrested several times, and the rent money that he paid was used on booze.  The water and electricity were cut off, so he is in limbo.  He has a talent for writing and photography but can't seem to find a roommate who isn't taken drunk ever so often.

Yet another recovery friend is depressed and brings his fear into a meeting.  People talk about solutions such as religion and therapy.  I inwardly cringe because these are outside the purview of Al-Anon.  My sharing is about service work helping me to get outside of my own sick thinking.  Being alone with the killer who wants me to be filled with fear and self-loathing isn't a good idea.  So he went to lunch after the meeting yesterday which is a start.

I am getting towards the end of a course on advanced piloting.  The exam is coming up soon.  Calculating set and drift is interesting.  I can determine the course a boat needs to take to get to a given location at a given time based on the current and wind.  I wish that we could navigate as well as humans.  So many of us don't correct our course until we are well up on the rocks.

Hoping to make this day one in which I steer a good course.

This is the true joy in life: the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. ~ George Bernard Shaw