Image courtesy of Serge Bertasius Photography/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I was just doing my early morning “first pass” of Facebook postings, and I ran across one that a friend had posted concerning the fact that a sponsor had commented her Big Book looked a bit dusty. So, naturally, I started thinking about dust. Now I, for one, would be in “deep doo-doo” if accumulated dust was used to determine the quality of my life. I get in enough trouble with what accumulating dust does to my allergies; and I must admit I never before considered what it might be doing to my soul. I hardly ever dust, and my time proven rationale that saves me from doing so is dusting stirs up the dust and makes me start sneezing and wheezing.
I digress. Back to the topic at hand, a Big Book with dust on it. Here is my take on the situation and the comment I made regarding this specific dust, ” If it is imprinted in your heart it does not matter if the book it came from is dusty!” I have never been one to memorize the content of any book, not even the Bible or the Big Book, verbatim, word for word. What matters to me is my understanding of what I read and what it means to me and how can I apply it in my life today. I am impressed when people can quote large passages of scripture from memory, but I am more impressed when I can see the intent of the scripture expressed in how that person is living his or her life.
Looking back on that paragraph clues me into the fact that I spend more time than I want to admit judging others and how they are living their lives. Around the recovery tables we call that “taking someone else’s inventory.” It is a pastime we are discouraged from pursuing. The Gospel of Matthew does the same thing when it asks why we focus on a speck we notice in someone else’s eye when we have an entire “beam” in our own eye.
Somehow I have made the journey from dust to wooden beams. But the common theme is this, it is the eye of the beholder that determines whether something is a problem or not, and the best advice I can give myself or anyone else is focus on changing what needs to be changed in yourself rather than what you think should be changed or fixed in others.
Stay warm and dry. May God bless and keep you.
Living One Day at a Time 