SUNDAY GRATITUDE EXTRAVAGANZA: SUN WORSHIP EDITION
| 5 Things About Sun Worship | The Sober Library | From the TFLMS Archives: "Conceiving a Power Greater than Myself" | Much, Much More |
I’m grateful for how things feel in the morning. I’m grateful for an amazing sunrise. I’m grateful for paths that cross and paths that crossed. I’m grateful for a new chance every day. I’m grateful to be sober today.
Sun Worship Edition
This was going to be called a number of things, including, at some point, the “My Vacation is Going to Start Suddenly Edition.”1 I had what you would call a fitful night of sleep, which semi-culminated in a “Law & Order” episode around 3am that I had never seen before.2 At some point, I determined it was around 5:52 and realized I probably wasn’t going to sleep much more. This realization didn’t necessarily unleash a torrent of gratitude or a sense that things were just the way they needed to be. But seeing this did:
If you were thinking that this was going to be about tanning and what-not, I’m probably not going in that direction. I did grow up during a time when it was very common for people to “sun-bathe” on reflective mats and literally apply “tanning oil” to themselves, making sure to turn regularly so as to get a nice golden, sun-kissed color all over. I was way too antsy for activities like that, also, that seemed a lot like “cooking.”3
Lots of religions put lots of significance on the Sun, which makes a lot of sense given that it is what makes life here possible. The Book of Genesis starts right off with the whole “Let there be light” thing and the dividing the light from the darkness. Lots of older civilizations spent a lot of time trying to divine God’s bent about was going on over here on the Third Planet, by observing where the Sun and Moon went. These ancient traditions are still pursued in remote regions of the world, like Times Square:
Here’s where I’m probably going to lose you. My particular Higher Power4 is really good at math. As we all know, our friendly El Sol, sitting out there 93 million miles away, is a star not unlike about seventy gazillion other stars. There isn’t much that’s unique about our star, other than it’s currently pretty perfectly situated to make life on this planet possible. As far as portents, give the Sun’s excruciating regularity and it’s kind of non-uniqueness, I have a hard time discerning too much meaning from day to day. I’m definitely not leaning towards adopting the blood-thirsty Huitzilopochtli as my deity of choice.5
Speaking of the Aztecs, their view was that the Gods of the Night were way more powerful and more dangerous and that the human sacrifice thing was important to keep Huitzilopochtli fighting the good fight. That whole night thing can be pretty terrifying. I have been an insomniac since I was about ten years old. I remember watching the horrific massacre of the Israeli athletes unfold at the 1972 Munich Olympics and it was a long time until I could sleep after that.
Why did that have such an impact on me? For me, I realized that there was really bad stuff out there that happened, it seemed to happen quite a bit and it seemed to happen a lot to people who sure didn’t seem to deserve it. It crystalized the basic fact that much of life is random, for ten year old me, one of the downstream realizations was that no one was ever really safe anywhere. Bad stuff could literally fall out of the sky, or come bubbling up from the ground or be borne right to the front door by bad people.
Going to church didn’t help. I mean, to my way of thinking, God let a lot of really bad stuff slide for quite a while. Even his chosen emissary, according to that particular story, suffers a pretty unenviable fate. I remember thinking, if God is benevolent and a pure expression of light, then why would all of this other nonsense happen? Why did Christianity have to be founded on an act of capital punishment? I’m sorry, that deity never struck me as someone who was going to have the time or interest in something less crucial for all of humankind—like my sobriety.
Back in the drinking days, the sun coming up thing was a mixed blessing. I lived in DC and my bedroom faced east, I had louvered blinds that kept out a lot of light, but since it was pretty old and cool, it had transom windows and there was no keeping the sun out of there. I’d often wake to the bright sun streaming through those windows, in the summer at ungodly hours like 5:30am. The problem with the sun rising every day and flooding my bedroom with light like that is that it forced me to see myself.
I’d often wake up feeling relaxed and even kind of happy. This would last for about 18 seconds and would quickly be replaced with the dread generated by the results of my phone archaeology. Things would slowly enter my consciousness like:
Shit, I broke up with my girlfriend last night
or
I sent that text?
or
F***, I’m going to rehab today.
Fortunately, I had plenty of dark, comforting places to go. Places where all of that pesky light and illumination wasn’t an issue. And fortunately, they sold a version of very effective “sun screen” by the glass.
Lots of the imagery of recovery is built around sunshine and stepping into the light. For a long time, the sun coming up simply showed another day I was going to have to strap on my shield and sword and go out and do battle with alcohol. Since I lost that daily battle with a distressing sameness, the sun coming up didn’t really feel great.
Early this morning, the part that my Higher Power still leaves on the dark side, was a time of realizing that not everything is the way I want it. Then the stupid sun came up, in pretty much the same spot and at the same time as yesterday, and the day before. But it never comes up exactly the same way.
There are literally zillions of variables that affect how that light travels 93 million miles, buffeted by waves of cosmic gravity, scattered by billions and billions of particles in the atmosphere, gathered together in my eye and and then launched down the optic nerve to light up this alcoholic brain. This morning, the demarcation between the light and dark looked like a ridiculous big, red rubber ball perched perfectly between the smokestacks on the other side of the bridge.
I’m not sure if you saw the sunrise this morning, or what it looks like to you on other days. For me, the sun rising no longer occasions a need for human sacrifice. There’s actually not a lot of mystery to it. These days, the sun coming up just helps me see what I need to do. And what used to be the bad news is now the good news:
It’s probably going to happen again tomorrow.
1. The First Sun Gods were Actually Goddesses
One of the worst movies ever made and the first Sun Goddess have the same name?
2. Apollo Had a Very Different Take
Leave it to a guy to turn the God of the Sun gig into complete world domination. Note: He also earned his street cred by killing a snake.
3. Here Comes the Sun!
They made kind of a cool video for a kind of middling Beatles song.
4. The Sun Also Rises
I’m pretty sure my 8th grade essay didn’t capture the nuances of Jake’s '“situationship” with Lady Brett.
5. Just Another Way to Look at It
The sun comes up and then it goes down again.
For us, reading and writing have been a big part of recovery and sobriety. We thought we’d start sharing some of our favorite books on the topic of recovery, addiction and general happiness and telling you how they helped us! If you have ideas, thoughts, comments, suggestions or if there are some books that you’d like to chat about, well, we’d love to do that with you. 6
And here’s the newest edition to The Sober Library:
The “Anyone Anywhere” Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous
It’s the “Anyone Anywhere” meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, this Tuesday evening at 7pm. We’re ready to go and hope you can join us this Tuesday! It’s 1/2 AA Meeting, 1/2 Alcoholic Book Club and 1/2 something else we haven’t figured out yet.
Hope you can join us!
From the TFLMS Archives:
I am going to take next Sunday off and you’ll be receiving a “previously enjoyed” Sunday Gratitude Extravaganza. Don’t worry, I’ll pick one of the good ones.
Given the number of years I’ve been watching, this seems mathematically impossible. Could my Higher Power be capable of that? Yes.
Ditto for the Hot Tub. “Hello, Mr. Lobster, you’re going to be taking a very hot bath today…”
Technically, it’s my “conception” of a Higher Power, so it might not be completely accurate.
Let’s not get too judg-y about the sacrifice thing until we consider King Agememnon and his “need for speed” for his navy and his unfortunate daughter Iphigenia…
Seriously, write a book review and we’ll probably put it up.