Witt's End

Staring at the stars on a clear night. Staring into the ocean. A flight across the country. Going to a funeral. That feeling of your insignificance. All of those lead to introspection. It begs the questions of where we fit. And I find myself asking over and over. How much does God directly intervene in our lives?  That's a question that's taken a lot of my spiritual space lately. And it's led to a follow up, does it matter? I think how I've changed my prayers . And I think that answers the question but I'm not sure. For a long part of my life, especially as a child I believed that God would directly intervene in our prayers. That he could rescue me from various situations.  I don’t know I can prayer for that anymore. That I can ask for a metaphysical intervention. That there’s a purpose for that. For me or for anyone. It’s made me wonder more and more about the entire ideas of preordination and predestination. Whether they effect the interventions that can occur for...

 I’ve struggled many times to describe what I do for work. And I’ve struggled just as hard to explain how you get there.  This was especially apparent this week. People love the population I work with but have no idea what I do. What it means. I feel it’s important to illuminate it.  I am a Peer Support Specialist at the VA. I’m currently credentialed as a Peer Counselor in the state of Washington (the state will be transitioning to a Peer Specialist license with more training and education). What does that mean?  Peers are people with lived experience with mental health and/or substance abuse challenges. They are successful and involved in their recovery. Those peers working at the VA also have to be veterans. That’s who we are.  Now to what we do. All peers support people in their recovery. They may run support groups, they do accountability checks. Peers help people access their resources. Peers may work on therapy and recovery skills with people both in grou...

 I wasn't planning on writing anything today. Then my kids reminded me it was MLK day. And I just felt rage.  I've tried cracking open Strength To Love four times to day. And I'm going to find some peace after I get some thoughts out and spend some time with it. I'm beyond frustrated that some of the first executive orders are to attempt to end birthright citizenship and change the name of Denali back to Mt Mckinley.  One of these will have little to no policy changes the other could change the fabric of America.  Let's talk about the first for the second. For decades, native tribes of Alaska petitioned to change the name of their sacred mountain from the name of a President to one reflective of the heritage of the place. To strip that through executive order is just vindictive. It serves no purpose other than to signal who is in and who is out. That's all.  Combine that with massive changes to immigration. Including a clampdown on legal immigration. And an atte...

Last month I averaged the most steps per day that I've had since I was in the Army. 10,933. About halfway through the month I stepped on the gas and thought I could get to 11,000, almost got there. For reference I was averaging 7,500 for the past year. Over the last two months I got up to 8,000, then 8,500. Now I got over 10,000.  So why am I talking about steps. Because its a large amount of growth for me.  I've spent two years struggling with various aspects of my health. What I expect out of my day to day life has changed. And I don't know if I will ever get totally back.  I want to maximize my current potential instead of aspiring for what could have been my potential. My life has taken some crazy turns over the past few years. And over the last decade I'm on an entirely different path than I would have ever thought.  I want to be ok with that.  I haven't always been.  I've spent a lot of time focused on where I wanted to be based on something other tha...