it's me o Lord standing in the place of need ..

i attended a 'celebrate recovery' class last week ..
i wasn't sure why exactly ..
maybe i just wanted to see what it was about
.. perhaps i thought i'd be able to help somebody else get 'fixed'

whatever ..

thing is, in the opening session one of the facilitators offered us a keyring-thingy
   a reminder of our commitment
well .. now commitment was a bit far down the road for me just then
besides that, commitment to what ?
   i wasn't admitting my Self to the program
      i was an observer, a contributor, a helper, a supporter kinda thing

   curioser and curioser ..
somehow deep inside i had a feeling from the first time i heard about the program ..
nebulous, fuzzy, undefined feeling ..
mayhaps i should be there

and then .. there was this experience i had several years ago when i went with a friend to their alcoholics anonymous meeting, and experienced something i later attributed to my imagined idea of what church should be like .. it has never left my mind
perhaps that memory contributed to the feeling i had that i should be there

and on sunday somebody spoke about it and encouraged people to attend ..
it's not just for the addicted, etc. .. it covers a whole swath of issues you may be toting around, things you probably would do well to ditch, perspectivize, acknowledge .. deal with
  and that nuanced it a bit

   so i went
and in the going i think something bumped inside me
and i took one of the keyring-thingys
and i sat through the intro, and the session
and i watched and i listened and i wondered
   again
      why am i here ?
      what is it in me that brought me to this place ?
..

i'll contextualize it a bit ..
on sunday the preacher made a point i'd not thought of concerning one of my fav passages - Matthew chapter 5, last verse
it's a statement by Jesus which he made after the phenomenal unbelievable incomprehensible things he said about taking the next slap and going the next mile and shedding the next shirt .. . . and loving enemies, perhaps the freakiest thing of all ..
   all of which the preacher subsumed under the thought "don't be afraid", "do not fear" ..

in that last verse Jesus said "be perfect, just like your father in heaven is perfect"
one of those verses i used to " ? " in my bible all the time ..
   not a thing for me to worry about
   i'll never achieve that for sure; in fact, who can? ..
but preacher said it's not setting you up to fail against this impossible standard
rather it is a thought that, just as God is perfectly God, the endgame for us is to be perfectly human, just as we were designed by God to be, just as we were imaged by God to be
   maybe just as Jesus came here to remind us
      by being The Son of the Human ..

and i watch him human
and i want to be like His humanity
i want to be the human the preincarnate Jesus/Word/Creator designed for me to be
..
and i am so very far from there
   many many miles to go before i sleep

and i have an increasingly persistent barking at my heels
this bugging nagging yap-yapping that i so want to lockout
   leave me in peace
.. i suspect i am that nag
i suspect it is i that stand in the place of need

it's me
not him
or her
or them
   me


i need to recover from me
so
help
me
God


peace to you