Solitaire.

Ever heard of it? Sure you have. Most likely it’s the most popular card game on the planet. Everybody knows how to play solitaire. It’s a simple game, they say. So simple that you can play it and do something else at the same time. You don’t have to think about it much to play it, they say. Well, not at first of course. You can tell when you see a beginner playing solitaire, cant you? They look at all the cards. They think about their options. They take their time. Oh, just play the red Jack on the black queen for crying out loud! Says the expert solitaire player. Hurry up, dummy!

When I was at the third step, I struggled. Not because I didn’t want to give my will and my life into the care of God, I did. I just didn’t know how to do it. Do I just say the words? I said them and meant them but that didn’t feel quite right, or maybe complete, to me. AA folks told me to just do the next right thing. That made sense but I felt I had always tried to do the next right thing … well, except drinking, of course…but, that wasn’t wrong, I thought. Everybody drank and I was merely a professional at it. I could hold my liquor. At the time I didn’t realize it had hold of me. So, anyways, the doing the next right thing suggestion wasn’t working for me. I wanted to agree with something dynamic…I wanted to see how I, and I suppose God, fit into some kind of a schematic picture of what I was doing when I gave my will up to Him. I wanted to say to myself, see, that’s what I’m doing. I understand that. So, I proceeded to conceive a variety of things.

What I came up with, naturally, confounded most of my AA friends. Like, I asked, is God’s will up to me? Is He waiting for me to decide to make His will happen? I don’t think so. God’s will is obviously not contingent on my consent. His will will be done whether I’m sober or not or defiant or obedient or good or bad. Another confounding idea; I came to realize that NOW is all that there is. The future is pure fantasy and the past is dead. The Now is alive and where God is and where His will is at work. Now is where He wants me to be. My body is almost always closer to NOW than my mind because my body is physical and it can’t wonder away from NOW. It’s stuck where it is…always a click or two after NOW – in the present. How close my mind is to NOW is up to my mind. Because it isn’t physical, it can approach Now, maybe even get there, but it can also wonder off…it can wonder a long long way off. So, I concluded, God wants my focus, my attention, my mind, in NOW because my body is stuck in the present. So, I looked for ways to help me get my mind into NOW. At the very least I wanted to get my mind and my body in the same place…the present. I ended up asking myself this question, “What am I doing right now…and why am I doing it?”

The first thing I noticed about the idea of asking this question was how hard it was to remember to ask myself the question, “What am I doing right now?’” Eventually I tied a string around my finger…a suggestion from my home table…and it worked> I started asking myself that question at least a dozen times a day. The answers were quite revealing. I came to see that my mind was almost never focused on/engaged in what was right in front of me. It was off thinking bout the future mostly…sometimes the past…worrying, planning, imagining, but, anything other than focusing on what was happening in front of my eyes…where God was. The exception was the time I spent at the tables. Then, last week, I was playing solitaire.

I started thinking about what a stupid game it was. I mean what was the point? You don’t actually play the game, you just move the cards around. Then it hit me. The cards cant move themselves. I’m here to move the cards around. There are rules and cheating indicates a serious character flaw. Who would cheat a solitaire? I can’t win at solitaire but I can screw it up. The final outcome of the game is not in my control…that is purely dependant on the deal of the cards, not my playing. The cards are dealt. I am the only player. It seems like there are a lot of decisions to make but they’re not really. I just follow the rules and pay attention.

I had found the perfect schematic picture for my third step challenge. My life is like solitaire and God deals me my hand. The cards I have are set. What they are and in what order is already determined…the Will of God. There is one choice, though, in solitaire and life. But here there is a difference, too. In both you can choose the attitude you bring to the game. The difference is that no one says that your attitude playing solitaire changes anything. But, in life, according to the Big book, Jesus (and many others), the attitude you bring changes everything – up to and including eternal life. And that attitude is completely up to me. So, now, I want with all my heart to bring the attitude of a beginner solitaire player to my life; I must remember to look at all the cards -- for I know these are all I will ever see; to take my time -- for this is the only game I will ever play. And for God’s sake, don’t care about the outcome -- that is already determined. Focus on what’s happening right there in front of me to make sure I don’t miss seeing the will of my Father at work moving the cards around.