a prophetic voice-

These first two months of 2013 have taken me in unexpected directions, upon roads less traveled, filled with challenges and pitfalls and chasms both deep and wide. Who could have known that the first day of this new year would bring the rending of this mother's heart as I was forced to face my youngest son's addiction and tell him "no more"...no more living under my roof with all of his needs being met...no more being supported by a mother whose resources for her old age were being depleted before her eyes...no more enabling and excusing in the name of being a "good mother". No more. And so, after two nights on the street in the January cold, he asked for help and I took him to the local shelter, where he could safely sleep and be fed and apply for their substance abuse program. As he turned to the resources of AA, I turned to those of Al-Anon, finding there a mirror in which I could see myself more clearly and honestly, a "family" of sorts where...

I find I am not up to company in which I cannot be myself today. What a dreadful thing to have to say about church, of all places. But I heard it yesterday...the reactions when I replied, "Fine," without any accompanying exuberance to the question, "How are you today?". "Only fine?" one person said. "That doesn't sound like you," said another. I had attended my first Al-Anon meeting in the morning and the reality of that was still clinging to me, giving me comfort but also making me very aware of this new journey on which I was embarked. There the masks were dropped...there, we were encouraged to be fully ourselves. Well, I don't want to have to put on a mask in order to be in company, so it is easier to stay by myself on this Epiphany Sunday, to read & write & think & pray. There is email for contact, and the phone if I want to hear another's voice. Just makes me feel incredibly sad that the message seems to be th...