Category Archives: love

ultimate price

Lewis Hastings's photo.

“Most of you know that I write and those that don’t – well I do, maybe not as well as some but well enough.
When I started writing years ago it was just a large part of putting my thoughts down on paper. Later it turned into something more,
something that I’m forever grateful for and one that I could never have done had I not gotten sober and stayed that way.
Good or bad life goes on.
As with anything, my writing started to change, change from recovery to just plan life.
Not just my life but those that are around me, around us every single day.
Most times when I’m putting short stories together a small connection can be found and with most times, I even knew who the book was going to be dedicated to well before it was even done and sent to the press – but not this one.
With the grace of God,
I’ll have my fifth book out next year and it will be called, “Taking it to the Filter.”
The title came from someone I knew that referred that statement as,
“Once you made a decision you see it to the end. Taking it all the way, finishing what you’ve started.”
Be it a book, a class, an argument, even a cigarette or going to the gym.
Changing something about yourself – be it for the better or dare I say worst.
Like I said, good or bad; so with the loss of yet another one – another friend passing, I’ve found myself sitting and doing what helps me deal with a feeling, I write.
I write down about a feeling, a feeling that if there was something, anything, that could have been done differently, could I have, and the answer to that question keeps coming back as a no. Yet here I am writing because I’m so damn mad.
So, so very numb and so powerless over the situation that as long as I’m been staying sober people that I’ve gotten close to or not have paid the ultimate price.
I can’t do much from where I sit;
I’ve given my thoughts, my prayers, my condolences and one other thing.
Whenever this new book of short stories does go to print next year,
I know now who the dedication will go to.
It will go to,
“All those that have found the shores of sobriety and to all those that have paid the ultimate price of being in their cups ‘til the end.”
The end of Taking it to the Filter… “

life just keeps getting stranger

“The dead take care of the dead and the living take care of the living, but every so often there’s a crossing – every so often there is a need, a wrong that needs righted or a moment that comes that plays out the way it’s meant to be and help is there.
The dead care for the dead as the living do the living just as the crossing, that bridge has happened before – can bring peace to the living as surely as it does for the dead.
It’s happened before and it will happen again, every so often the way is set clear.
The path is open to those in need, those that need forgiveness, those that crave answers and those that harbor trouble spirits.
To see, to speak, to once again find those that are nether here or there.
Sometimes it’s hard, bitter sweet, healing and forgiving, frightening or full of hope.
It can be magical to some just as forbidding to others.
The dead take care of the dead just as the living takes care of those that are.
But one thing is clear, that pathway – that bridge is very Strange..”
-Strange Alice-

My spirituality is not the same as yesterday, a week ago, or even a year ago.
It is constantly changing…. it has to be.- LE Hastings

Pie

-Taking it to the Filter-

“Looking at this made me realize that it doesn’t matter on the who’s or the what’s or where you’re from.

When I think of how I make it today – with or without the different meats.

It was always about the layers.

How one item is placed upon the top of the other.

How I can put things together to make one thing come out good.

Well, that if you like this short of pie.

But it made me think on how – as my spirituality grows – I can see the different layers one on top of the next and just as I can see today the different layers within my using that ended up being so very disastrous in the end.

What came from asking this one simple question to my friends and family had ended up once again making me look at the many layers of my life today, which make me who I am.

Where I’m going.

Who I end up by the end of the day.

There’s many recipes out there on about – well just about everything really.

But as I look at my life today.

Right now at this moment I can place in my bowl the many layers to make a good meal or place the items that I think it needs – which always turns sour most times anyways lift to mine own thinking.

But today, by adding in the items that will help me throughout the day and asking for help from God, from friends and family the many layers that have been passed down seems to work out just a little bit better than the day before.

So by the end of the day when I say, “Thanks” at night.

I can have a good tasting piece of the

Looking at this made me realize that it doesn’t matter on the who’s or the what’s or where you’re from.

When I think of how I make it today – with or without the different meats.

It was always about the layers.

How one item is placed upon the top of the other.

How I can put things together to make one thing come out good.

Well, that if you like this short of pie.

But it made me think on how – as my spirituality grows – I can see the different layers one on top of the next and just as I can see today the different layers within my using that ended up being so very disastrous in the end.

What came from asking this one simple question to my friends and family had ended up once again making me look at the many layers of my life today, which make me who I am.

Where I’m going.

Who I end up by the end of the day.

There’s many recipes out there on about – well just about everything really.

But as I look at my life today.

Right now at this moment I can place in my bowl the many layers to make a good meal or place the items that I think it needs – which always turns sour most times anyways lift to mine own thinking.

But today, by adding in the items that will help me throughout the day and asking for help from God, from friends and family the many layers that have been passed down seems to work out just a little bit better than the day before.

So by the end of the day when I say, “Thanks” at night.

I can have a good tasting piece of the Pie…”

My spirituality is not the same as yesterday, a week ago, or even a year ago.
It is constantly changing…. it has to be.- LE Hastings

Before

“So that’s why you asked me if I wanted to be back here? You weren’t talking about these groups – but sitting in the back, right?”
“Well my young friend, if nothing changes – nothing changes and if that happens, I’ll be doing the same old – same old thing that got me here in the first place. Wouldn’t you agree?” I said to them.
“Yeah – and I ended up doing the same thing.”
“Well now you’re not – right?”
“Yeah.” They said to me.
“Are you going to sit down by me or was this just a big hoax to get me closer to the front?”
“Well, I don’t think you want to be sitting where I’m sitting.”
“Why- where’s that?” They asked – as I walk up to the front of the room and sit down at the chair table and introduce myself and told the group who and what I am, as I look over at my new friend, “So it’s not any surprise that I ended up back here. It Happened Before…”
-Talking to the Filter-

My spirituality is not the same as yesterday, a week ago, or even a year ago.
It is constantly changing…. it has to be.- LE Hastings

Next…

Well folks, it looks like Annie’s Book Stop in Nashua, NH. will be the place of my next book signing. They’re also going to be putting my books on the shelves for sale. The date looks like December 3rd Thursday night from 5-7 for the signing. I’ll start posting more information. If no one told you – you could. You can. Life does have meaning and I’m so very blessed to have so many friends and family on this trip called life…

Lewis Hastings's photo.

but I’m not you

“As the texts come in and the phone starts to ring my mind begins to wonder. It will be different this time – the voice begins to cry and the whisper of hope for a new beginning dies. My thoughts go to you because you sound a lot like me, but I’m not you..”
-Taking it to the Filter-

My spirituality is not the same as yesterday, a week ago, or even a year ago.
It is constantly changing…. it has to be.- LE Hastings