{"id":809,"date":"2009-07-24T23:12:04","date_gmt":"2009-07-25T03:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.obined.com\/?p=809"},"modified":"2009-07-24T23:12:04","modified_gmt":"2009-07-25T03:12:04","slug":"on-and-off-the-beam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/2009\/07\/24\/on-and-off-the-beam\/","title":{"rendered":"On and  off the  beam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I guess to be on the beam is to be maintaining our spiritual condition. Being off the beam is to miss the mark. Bill W. used that term, as I was told, as a plane coming in on a radio beam. If the pilot got off the beam, he could crash. Staying on the beam means a safe landing.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I was thinking about this in relation to a mental conflict I found myself in yesterday. I know I was off the beam. Wrapped up in my own mind I found myself flying blind, as they say.<\/p>\n<p>The cause is not important. What was important was that it was all about me. And, when it&#8217;s all about me, my primary purpose drifts into the background. The &#8220;beam&#8221; is lost. And that beam is spiritual in nature. My job yesterday, as it is today, to get back on the beam.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, I was disturbed. That&#8217;s the spiritual axiom in the 10th Step. Whenever I&#8217;m disturbed there is something wrong with me. My job was to get undisturbed. And that&#8217;s where an examination of what was going on came in. I won&#8217;t go through the list, but the important thing for me was that I was able to focus and get out of the rut I found myself in yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>In moments like that, I am not thinking sober. My old way of thinking is back, usually followed by old acting out. Thanks to my higher power and what I had been instructed to do by my sponsor, I was able to reach out to another alcoholic. In just that action the problem began to melt away.<\/p>\n<p>As in most of my &#8220;problems&#8221;, the solution is always spiritual. I know if I take care of the spirit within me, nothing but good follows.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I was thinking about this this evening and grateful for this way of life that has been opened to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I guess to be on the beam is to be maintaining our spiritual condition. Being off the beam is to miss the mark. Bill W. used that term, as I was told, as a plane coming in on a radio beam. If the pilot got off the beam, he could crash. Staying on the beam &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/2009\/07\/24\/on-and-off-the-beam\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;On and  off the  beam&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nedsnotebook.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}