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i am grateful that for each member of the fellowship, this is a personal matter. how do i pray? well it is certainly not on my face or on my knees, or in any manner that implies subservience, as that is NOT part of my understanding of the POWER that fuels my recovery.
for others? well that is certainly part of the curse and the blessing of the fellowship that gives me a new way of living. honestly, i still, to this day, have a problem or two with authority and if someone told me i NEEDED to pray in a certain manner, to a certain HIGHER POWER, with a specific form, i would tell the to fVck OFF! that is the blessing, not only am i FREE to find my own direction in this aspect of my spirituality, it is encouraged. there is TRUE freedom here, unlike other fellowships that say one thing, than endorse a specific path, overtly and not so overtly throughout the manner they run their meetings. that is part of the reason i am where i am now, for the blessing of total freedom from a dogmatic approach to this whole idea of conscious contact gig.
that is also the curse. because of the tradition of allowing us to find our own paths, many struggle in the early days, and i certainly was one of those.the great part, is that when asked, other members freely share their experience with me, as i now can mine with those who are following in this path behind me. the second part of the curse for me, is that when those who follow certain spiritual paths, bring their beliefs into the room, i want to shut-down and shut them the fVck up. they MUST tolerate me and my weird and unique beliefs, but fVck them if they bring in anything that sounds mainstream or dogmatic. as you can see that there is still a strong emotional reaction to that particular spiritual path, even when i am writing about it in passing. it just goes to show, that i am far from “recovered” yet.
getting back on track, learning to tolerate the entire spectrum how others view the spiritual world, is for me apparently, a life-long project. what i once viewed as superstitious ignorance, i now can see as a different piece of the elephant we all are trying to define. what oi once saw as intellectual laziness, i see as a common thread that binds that community together. even though that path is not now and more than likely will never be mine, i can be grateful that i had that experience as a starting point for my own journey into the spiritual. yes, at one time i did pray on my knees, and i could a but in here, BUT that fact stands on its own. those days are gone. once i did use the THEEs and THOUs and the stifled and archaic language that i thought was part of that spiritual tradition. that was before i left that other fellowship and came to see where i really belonged. i did all of that because that was what i saw, and what i thought i had to emulate, as i tried so desperately to stay clean and fit in. not one soul told me to do that, although it was what my original sponsor seemed to suggest.
today, i have freedom from my self-imposed ignorance and that means at times i struggle with my understanding of the POWER that fuels my recovery. yes i could always lapse back into the spiritual path that i was brought up in, even if i would chafe under that yoke and soon rebel again. i could see one of the other myriad paths to the divine that are organized and followed by humans all over the world, but soon enough that too would collapse upon me, and in a fit of pique i would lash out and do something i would come to regret. int=stead i do believe that i will come to believe by the long and winding road i have already trod upon and allow my concept of a HIGHER POWER to grow as i grow and the means by which i maintain my conscious contact with that POWER, to morph accordingly. that way i can live the blessing and minimize the curse. so off to the showers and into work i go.

∞ DT ∞