August 21 2023

Keep coming back.

That is a sort of mantra for AA folks like myself. In my circles we say it at most meetings, sometimes one person to another, sometimes collectively.

For the newcomer into the program, at its most basic, it’s a call to continue going to meetings. Keep showing up. Just get into the rooms. Get yourself around other sober folks, around support, around stories. When you don’t know what to do, just get to a meeting; it’s part of how it works.

You work the program and the program works you, and the only way for that work to happen is to get your tush in a chair and show up, again and again and again. If you do that, if you keep coming back, your chance for sobriety and a depth of living increases dramatically.

Don’t show up, stop coming back, and it becomes much more difficult.

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“Keep coming back” has expanded in meaning for me. It’s a call to go deeper and to remain there.

When I am at my end with the boys, keep coming back Joshua. Turn your face and your body towards them. Return, return, return.

Joshua, return to God, over and over. Return to the great weaver. Every movement away from God is an opportunity to return. Every shift away from connection is a chance to reunite.

Joshua, keep coming back to salads. You need that good earth in your body. Walk away from Oreos.

Keep coming back to silence, to stillness. Be still and know. Make yourself available. Return to listening. Creativity is often mystically birthed from the womb of silence.

Keep coming back to the earth. Get your bare feet in the soil. Smell the evergreen needles, taste the honey, feel the bark of the black locust.

And Joshua — keep coming back to yourself. Return to the goodness that is in you and has been in you your entire life. Remain in your value, which does not come from your job or bank account or furniture or status. Keep coming back to you, because God is in you and you are in God. Why go anywhere else?