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...could only be cold-hearted and unreasonable, sending me bad luck on a whim. so as i sit here this there are more than a few different directions that this random mind dump can go, and although it might be constructive to look at my particular cosmology and delve deeply into that set of beliefs, i am pulled away by a different burning desire and so i think i will go there instead, each day, i ask GOD to keep me clean, and although that goes more to the surrender that is need for me to stay in recovery and the topic of yesterday’s reading, it is still burning in me this morning. in fact the line about turning my will and my life over to the care of a harsh, capricious and demanding power rings in my ears. of course i am paraphrasing, but be that as it may, part of the trouble with the whole HIGHER POWER gig that i had when i finally accepted that i needed a source of POWER from outside of me, was all the garbage i had in my head about what GOD was and was not. i call it garbage, not because the source of that knowledge was garbage, but because i had warped the information given me by the caring and concerned members of religious orders, into something even they would have trouble recognizing. that garbage had to be disposed of before i could really move into the THIRD STEP, and quite honestly, it was not until my second set of steps that i had adequately dealt with that crap and truly work a THIRD STEP. so for years i lived in the world of ‘as-if’ staying clean on a borrowed concept of a HIGHER POWER.
although it worked for me, and probably has worked for thousands of other addicts in recovery, it is not a path i would recommend fro others to trod upon, if they could possibly avoid it. the irony of this path, at least for me, is that when others look at me today, none of this struggle is in evidence, and more than once i have been recently asked about how i solved the whole HIGHER POWERED dilemma. they see the end result, and from the questions they ask, they seem to think that i have always been quite comfortable in my belief system, and are often shocked about where i started from and how i got to where i am today. yes it was a long, strange trip, and one that i would not trade for anything else. for me, this was and is, the easier, softer way and wallowing in maudlin regret of what might have been if only i came to this earlier in my recovery is an exercise in futility. so i tell those who ask, that they too, must embark on a similar path of finding what works for them, and that if a true agnostic like me, can initiate and sustain the process of coming to believe, that they can too! and yes, if they need to borrow my concept for a bit of time, they are welcome to it. so off to the cold world to work off a bit of frustration and see how a new route feels like this morning.

∞ DT ∞