CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

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New Castimonia Meeting in Cypress, TX (Northwest Houston)!

I am humbled to announce that we will officially be starting a new Castimonia meeting on Thursday nights at Fairfield Baptist Church in Cypress, TX on June 4th!  This is our second meeting located in Northwest Houston.
Location information is written below.
Beginning June 4, 2015
Thursday Nights
Time: 8:00PM – 9:30PM
Location: Fairfield Baptist Church
Room 206/208
27240 Highway 290
Cypress, TX 77433
281.373.5446
This meeting should help those that live in far Northwest Houston who may not have the opportunity to travel down to Katy or Lifepath Church to a Castimonia meeting.
Praise be to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for all He has done to grow His ministry!

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Rigorous Honesty – VIDEO

I love recovery movies.  These movies typically include plots involving alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, support groups, honesty, selfishness, selflessness, redemption, etc… that are the main theme in the movie. 

I finally watched the movie Flight which came out a few years ago. Below is a synopsis of the movie.

Commercial airline pilot Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) has a problem with drugs and alcohol, though so far he’s managed to complete his flights safely. His luck runs out when a disastrous mechanical malfunction sends his plane hurtling toward the ground. Whip pulls off a miraculous crash-landing… More that results in only six lives lost. Shaken to the core, Whip vows to get sober — but when the crash investigation exposes his addiction, he finds himself in an even worse situation.
What I saw in this movie was the healing power of finally stepping out of denial and practicing rigorous honesty with ourselves and with others.  This is exactly what we do in Castimonia in our program.  We stop lying and start being honest, even when we have a slip or relapse.  We have come to understand that rigorous honesty is more important that our sobriety in the program.  If we are not honest, we are not sober, even if we haven’t slipped or relapsed.  If we are not honest, then we are simply a “dry drunk” white-knuckling through recovery.  Rigorous honesty is tough, something that I personally have to practice on a daily basis.  For the man in this film, when he finally became honest, he gave everything up in doing so.  THIS is the level of rigorous honesty we must achieve, to be honest even when it means we may lose everything! 

I hope you enjoy watching this video as much as I enjoyed creating it.  As always, take what you like and leave the rest.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, & education, etc. This constitutes a ’fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED! All trademarks and copyrights remain the property of their owners.

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Freedom or Death – VIDEO

What is it about underdog war movies that really gets my blood pumping? I love these types of movies and this one is one of my favorites.  It wasn’t until entering recovery that the Holy Spirit gave me some special “recovery glasses” that have allowed me to spot recovery themes in various media; music, movies, photographs, etc…  These themes can include support groups, honesty, selfishness, selflessness, redemption, etc… that are portrayed in the movie. 

Braveheart is one of these movies.  The plot of this movie has been pasted below courtesy of Google:

Braveheart tells the story of the legendary thirteenth century Scottish hero named William Wallace (Mel Gibson). Wallace rallies the Scottish against the English monarch and Edward I (Peter Hanly) after he suffers a personal tragedy by English soldiers. Wallace gathers a group of amateur warriors that is stronger than any English army.

What I saw in this movie was the fight that William Wallace had in him to be free.  This is the same fight that I see in myself and many men who struggle with maintaining sexual purity.  For far too long we have been under the thumb of tyranny and oppression by our sexual sin and now that we have entered recovery, we must FIGHT, fight for our freedom!  This is exactly what we do in Castimonia, we come together in the group to fight against the world and the sexual sin that keep us captive.  We must be willing to fight for our purity, fight for our families, and fight for our God.

I hope you enjoy watching this video as much as I enjoyed creating it.  As always, take what you like and leave the rest.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, & education, etc. This constitutes a ’fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED! All trademarks and copyrights remain the property of their owners.

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Conquering our Fear – VIDEO

I recently watched “After Earth” and I thought it had some deeper recovery-related gems.  For those that don’t know much about this movie here is a summary from Wikipedia:

In the future, an environmental cataclysm forces the human race to abandon Earth and settle on a new world, Nova Prime.

One thousand years later, the United Ranger Corps, a peacekeeping military commanded by General Cypher Raige, comes into conflict with alien creatures who intend to conquer Nova Prime. Their primary weapons are the Ursas: large, blind predatory multi-limbed creatures that hunt by sensing pheromones the human body secretes when scared (they literally smell fear). The Rangers struggle against the Ursas until the impassive Cypher learns how to completely suppress his fear, in effect becoming invisible to the Ursa—a technique called “ghosting.” After teaching this to the other Rangers, he leads the Ranger Corps to eventual victory.

In watching this movie, I picked up on  the recovery-related theme.   The subtheme I saw in this movie is that of fighting through and conquering our fears.  This resonates with me in recovery in that I tend to medicate my fear of the unknown with unhealthy activities, even compulsively watching television or sports.  There are a number of fears in my life but one of the things that I have become present to over the last few years is that fear is not real and this is stated clearly in one of the scenes of this movie.  For me, I have to understand that fear is simply Future Events Appearing Real, which means I am afraid of something that has not occurred or may never occur!  I hope this movie helps you with any fears you may have.

As always, take what you like and leave the rest.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, & education, etc. This constitutes a ’fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED! All trademarks and copyrights remain the property of their owners.

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Vince Lombardi on Emotions

“I’m a highly emotional man, I’m quick to tears and I’m quick to praise and I’m quick to all of those things.  I think anyone who tries to hide their emotions, I think makes a mistake.  I think you’ve got to do things according to your own personality.  This is all part of what ever little bit of success I’ve had too.  I think this is most important.” – Vince Lombardi