Blog entry for:

it is, to share the burden of my past. quite honestly after a few trips through the steps, there is not too much left inside of me, that has yet to be shared with my sponsor and my closed mouth friends. my life may not be an open book to the entire world, but it is far from the secretive missive it once was. in fact i took great pains to keep my stuff under wraps and suffered many penalties because of it. yes there are penalties for being secretive, “negative” consequences abound and today i am willing to chance the consequences that i find undesirable in hopes that the desirable ones come to fruition. yes consequences i do NOT desire are judged by me to be negative, just as ideas i do not find palatable, or people whom i do not care for. the fact that i can slap such judgement labels on stuff, is part of being human, and means i have an attachment to those sorts of things. it is not those things, ideas or consequences that are good or evil; negative or positive, they just are. no it is my reaction and how it affects me that makes them be categorized into those diverse classes. it is an attachment to various outcomes that make me human, and as i consider the conversation with my sponse ta bit more, success in life, is more than likely NOT the will of the POWER that fuels my recovery, it is my self-will, channeled into my true will, when that success comes from the application of spiritual principles in all of my affairs.
so with all of that as a preface, i can safely say that my dirty little secret is: i do NOT believe in the power of prayer. as i get down to the nuts and bolts of my ELEVENTH STEP, the only thing i pray for is the power to stay clean today and live according to those very principles i espouse. i could go into a thousand and one reasons why i do not pray or believe in it, but it all boils down to the fact that prayer is NOT part of the spiritual template i follow, and to reconcile the fellowships' teaching with those of that path, means i make a few concessions, such as praying for the power to stay clean and knowledge of the will of that POWER today. all of that is starting to feel “just right” to me and i am grateful for the freedom to be a part of a fellowship where i am not burned at the stake, because i do not adhere to the most common line of spiritual development.
the beauty of this fellowship is that even if the men i sponsor follow a spiritual tradition closer to mainstream, we can still work together to further their journey into becoming the men they have always wanted to be. anyhow, secrets being what they are, the time has come to shower off and get rolling on into my busy day. it is a ghood day to be open and certainly as free as i am. now that i am free of that secret i can move into getting ready to uncover another.

∞ DT ∞