Thoughts On An Anniversary

Earliest dawn in Big Bend National Park.

There are so many things I wanted to do with this blog. Looking at my very first post from a year ago, I see that my little laundry list of issues remains essentially the same:

Religious Faith: personal and public

Civil liberties

Alternatives to capitalism: replacing the corporate state

Human Rights

Peace

Environmentalism

Paganism

Love

Sex

Anarchy: the ideal form of government which we are not ready for

Today I would only add recovery and parenthood to that list; I would also remove the alternatives to capitalism phrase. It is not captialism per se that I oppose. It is more the fact that we currently live in corporate oligarchy. I'm just not a fan of giant corporations at all.

It is very interesting to read my second post as well. Within a day of starting the blog I am confronting one of my biggest personal demons; anger and how to handle it. Reading that last line of second post gave me a jolt: Perhaps I am not ready to be a parent yet. Well, one year later I am a parent and the question is what am I doing be a good parent?

I know for a fact that one person read the two posts (Free To Good Home; Why Exactly) reflecting my initial frustrations as a parent and considered calling child protective services. She has known me for three full years and still she thought that I might harm my daughter or abandon her. It took an hourlong one-on-one conversation with her to convince her that was not the case. She did not understand that one of the reasons I am so bluntly honest here is because if I write what I feel, then I don't have to go do it. In other words, I process the anger, the frustratrion, etc. into writing and it is gone by the time I finish.

That was kind of scary, to think that something I had posted might have resulted in me losing Anwen temporarily. I also think that Laura would have been enraged at that woman, had the family been separated, even for a day, because of that. For me it was another clear lesson that what I write can impact my life dramatically; for the better or the worse. Yet I intend to stay honest as I can here.

I want to say thank you very much to my readers and commentors; I have really met a wonderful group of people by writing. I am very blessed.

I did do one thing absolutely right with my first post and I will do that again, right here and now. I ended that first post with a prayer of thanksgiving.

Good Morning Goddess Brigit; my name is Andy and I am an alcoholic. I have been kept sober one day at a time since Imbolc of 2001, that is by Your grace and Your grace alone. I'd like to take this moment to thank you, my Higher Power, for this daily reprieve. Today is a good day to be sober.

Please, Great Mother, be with me today, all through the day and help me to stay sober all day long. Show me Your will for me and grant me the power to carry that out. Thy will, not mine be done. Be welcome in me and to me; body, heart, mind and soul. May I be a good father to Anwen, please.

Thank you, Blessed Be.