12 step program for recovering control freaks

Is there a 12-step program for people with addiction to control? How about a book, Giving Up Control in Five Easy Steps? No? Well, there should be.

Hello, my name is Joni, and I am a control freak.

Yep, its official. I’m sure this doesn't affect you personally, dear reader, but maybe you know someone who is a control freak. Who likes to have her neat list, who wants to know that, barring a tsunami, she will be able to manage every aspect of her life and the lives of those around her. Who am I kidding, of COURSE you know someone like this – ME.

Here’s the one word in the English language I can’t pronounce, much less practice. It comes out of my lips like the telephone number of a drunk person: SURRENDER.

verb: To yield or resign in favor of another

When I think of surrender, I don’t tend to think of it in positive terms. I tend to think it is giving up, when your back is against the wall, when you have no alternative but to fold your cards. It’s over, I lost, I’m done.

New beginnings [and] Ocean Depths

I realize I've sort of taken a detour from Judaism. I should have wrapped up my Jewish experience with this wonderful interview I had with a beautiful and intelligent Jewish woman and her husband already. I have that interview and conversation halfway typed and saved as a draft. The thing about my visit with Mary Blye Posani is that she made me think differently about God. She was the culmination of everything I had been learning for the past months. She made me think about sacred spaces and mystery and seeking out those things for myself... and I couldn't really just type up what we talked about and move on. I had to process it all for myself, and figure out what God was saying to me... so I apologize for the detour into my own life and heart and experience... and I will eventually get to that talk I had with Mary on Shabbat, and wrap up Judaism properly, and move on to my next experience. I promise! 
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On November 6th, at 6pm, I am going to be baptized.

I was baptized as a kid. Maybe 9 or 10. I accepted Jesus when I was 5 or 6. I didn’t understand what either of those things meant, and besides all that, what was God washing away? The sins of a child – lying to my parents, disobeying, hitting my brothers... I didn’t really get it.

So I grew up and made different choices, and when my husband and I split in 2006, I left God and the church, too. Only, I missed God. I blocked him out and I tried to fill up the spot where he was, and instead, I just made a big mess out of my life.

Day 10 - Sweet Blasphemy - Loving God Part II

I have a foundational belief, that being: God is love.

The God who is love is the reason I began this project. I read a book called The Fourty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak and it altered my perspective on loving God. I grew up believing that there was only one way to love God and that my perspective on God (the Christian perspective) was the ONLY [right] perspective. I believed that other religions were worshipping someone other than "my" God, the REAL God.

A parable was told by the Shams of Tabriz, a Muslim scholar who taught and learned from Rumi, a well-known Muslim scholar, teacher, and poet. The parable Shams told was of loving God "correctly" and it was part of the beginning of my eyes being opened to the idea that perhaps there is more than one correct way to love God.

I don't know if I'm violating some copyright rules, but here is the story told by Shams:

One day Moses was walking in the mountains on his own when he saw a shepherd in the distance. The man was on his knees with his hands spread out to the sky, praying. Moses was delighted. But when he got closer, he was stunned to hear the man's prayer:

"Oh my beloved God, I love Thee more than Thou can know. I will do anything for Thee, just say the word. Even if Thou asked me to slaughter my fattest sheep in Thy name, I would do so without hesitation. Thou would roast it and put its tail fat in Thy rice to make it more tasty."

Moses inched toward the shepherd, listening attentively.

"Afterward, I would wash Thy feet and clean Thine ears and pick Thy lice for Thee. That is how much I love Thee."

Moses had heard enough. He interrupted the shepherd yelling "Stop, you ignorant man! What do you think you are doing? Do you think God eats rice? Do you think God has feet for you to wash? This is not prayer! It is sheer blasphemy."

Dazed and ashamed, the shepherd apologized repeatedly and promised to pray as decent people did. Moses taught him several prayers that afternoon. Then he went on his way, utterly pleased with himself.

But that night, Moses heard a voice. It was God's.

"Oh, Moses, what have you done? You scolded that poor shepherd and failed to realize how dear he was to me. He might not be saying the right things in the right way, but he was sincere. His heart was pure and his intentions good. I was pleased with him. His words might have been blasphemy to your ears, but to Me, they were sweet blasphemy.:

Moses immediately understood his mistake. The next day, early in the morning he went back to the mountains to see the shepherd. He was praying again, but this time he was praying in the way he had been instructed. In his determination to get the prayer right, he was stammering, bereft of the excitement and passion of his earlier prayer. Regretting what he had done to him, Moses patted the shepherd's back and said: "My friend, I was wrong. Please forgive me. Keep praying in your own way. That is more precious in God's eyes." (Elif Shafak, The Fourty Rules of Love, pg 51)

I was judging the way that other people connected to God and the path that they took to reach him. In reality, I was prescribing a path to God based entirely upon my cultural context of God. If other's connection to God is real, and if their prayers are sincere, regardless of my personal or cultural belief system I believe that a God of love cannot possibly ignore that. A God who is love cannot turn his back on himself and reject the love given to him.

The book I read began to change my perspective and made me wonder what the other perspectives looked like... hence my journey.

Day 10 - Loving God

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

- Rumi

The strongest motivator in any relationship is love. No less in Islam: the most important thing is that a Muslim love God, and from that love results submission, obedience, and peace. But the LOVE OF GOD is the keystone of Islam. "Love is what integrates the human soul, and the ultimate object of love is God." (Ahmad al-Ghazali)

If a life lived without love is not living at all, and if love is what creates life, what continues life, what extends life, and what enhances life, then the object of our love determines the dimensions of our world, in a manner of speaking. Loving other humans increases our dimensions of experience in life. Loving ideas or ideals increases our dimensions in an intellectual way. Loving GOD, who is described as everything - All knowing, All powerful, All controlling, Eternal, All seeing, All hearing - Loving God would then increase our dimensions of living to vast, perhaps infinite, proportions.

Love is an important concept in all religions, not just Islam. It is notably important to love God in Christianity certainly, but actually acting on the love is a different matter altogether. If loving God is important, what exactly does that mean to the Muslim who, by definition, is following a religion of peace, submission and obediance? How does love play into the whole scheme of things?

Putting aside the abstract idea of how one goes about emotionally loving God and producing the feeling of love, one must physically show love to the one being loved. Physical demonstrations of love are clearly set forth in the Five Pillars of Worship, in which all Muslims take part:

1. Shahada: A person becomes a Muslim by making the basic statement of testimony: "I testify that there is no God but God, and Muhammad was [one of] his messenger[s]"
2. Salat: Salat is a formal, ritualized prayer performed at five specified times each day, consisting of a sequence of recitations and bodily positions, including prostration with one's forehead touching the ground. (Interestingly, 47% of Muslims in America perform Salat five times daily. 66% perform Salat at least once daily. I wonder how many Christians would be able to say that they pray five times daily at specific times, were it required? Or Jews?)
3. Zakat: Charity and giving is important in the Muslim religion, and Zakat is due yearly and can be given to any charity, but primarily one that promotes Islam is encouraged. Zakat is 2.5% of income and assets.
4. Saum: Fasting during the month of Ramadan from sunrise to sunset is an important way that Muslims act out their love for God and recieve spiritual renewal.
5. Hajj: At least once in his or her life, Muslims are expected to make a pilgrimage to Mecca and perform a series of tasks related to remembering Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac and remembering the life of Muhammad.

Performing the rituals and rites don't create love, however much they come out of love. Its important to remember that loving God begats the desire to please him by service and obediance and submission. Love came first, and everything else grew from that love.

Ritual becoming real involves the infusion of love. And the relationship that God desires requires a catalyst of love.

Last Sunday afternoon, sitting with three beautiful Muslim sisters, Lubi spoke of getting past the ritual of Islam and making a personal choice to love God:

"[In many cases], you are born into [Islam] and you don't really think about it as much because you're just told you have to do it like this or like that, and this is how you think and this is what you should believe, and you just learn to believe that.

Some people question themselves, question their parents, question the religion, some people are told it's forbidden to question - that you shouldn't you should just accept it, so I started questioning - not the [existence] of Allah, but some of the practices that we do: Why do we do it like this? Why are we Sunni and they are Shi'ite?

I went for my Hajj with my parents when I realized the importance of it all. Seeing the Ka'ba (altar) in front of me and reading the Qur'an and the biography of the prophet changed me. When I went back [home], I studied the Qur'an. I love the teachings of the Bible and the teachings of the Christians, and I love Jesus. But in my heart of hearts, I know that every word in [the Qur'an] is from God. He is speaking to me."

Lubi's task was not to seek for love because it was there in front of her. God was there in front of her, and a relationship with Him possible at any time. Her task was to remove the barriers that she built in herself against it.
Her task was to MAKE IT PERSONAL.

I believe that...

Love must be personal to be real.

Loving with abandon is ecstasy. 

We were made to hope and to love, it is our nature as humans.

Seeking God, pursuing love, learning trust - these are natural yearnings of the human heart.

Wait, until you take a look inside yourself -
Recognize, what is growing there.
Oh seeker,
A leaf in this garden,
Means more than all leaves
You will find in paradise!

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come

-Rumi