โฏ an understanding โ
Posted: Tue, Feb 14, 2017 08:12:21 AM
of GOD that truly works, for me. just for today, i will not retell of my journey to find my spiritual path and become comfortable with an understanding of the POWER that fuels my recovery. been there, done that got the T-shirt. i also do not want to rehash the danger that i put myself in, when i decided to **borrow** my first sponsor's HIGHER POWER, covered that as well. taking those two topic off the table, WTF do i have to write about this morning? how about, my understanding of GOD that i see right here and right now, that might make for a few hundred words of typed material today.
i live in the real world, secular, loud and crowded as it is. i constantly feel the pressure to conform with what was once the dominant spiritual path in my culture. the fact is, even when i just “went with the flow,” i never truly believed i was doing anything, save going through the motions, to look like i was part of something greater. today, coming to find a path outside the dominating spiritual tradition of my peers, has given me a freedom i never thought was possible, and perhaps what i have been waiting for is a celebration of that difference, rather than the rebellious diffidence i have been expressing. perhaps what i need to do, is stop looking down on those who choose that path and join them as equals on the same level.
i can certainly say that ever since i walked into the rooms, there has been a chip on my shoulder about this whole religion versus spirituality dichotomy. my attitude when i came in, was that those who believed, must somehow be inferior because they could not take control of their own lives and relied on “manna from heaven,” to save their bacon, time and again. over time, as i grew into my spiritual path, that attitude went from open expression, to being buried somewhere deep within my judgement machine, and it still gets triggered when one of my peers, starts going on about how “blessed,” they may be today. the second part of that unsavory judgement machine is that those peer who follow that particular path are just plain lazy. they did not even bother to explore other paths and only pay lip service to the notion of coming to believe, that two pronged attack on my peers, separates me from them and feeds a bias and prejudice machine that spews out hate and arrogance not to dissimilar to some of the supporters of the current POTUS.
writing about the nature of my disrespect and the core of my arrogance about the journey i took to find an understanding of the POWER that fuels my recovery, opens a channel of emotion, regret and yes shame over how i narrow-minded and hypocritical i can be and suggests that what is keeping my from moving on, is my abiding belief, right or probably wrong, that somehow i have an elevated sense of spirituality. what should be uniting me with my peers, keeps me from them, time and again. i am more than certain that no matter how i see and understand GOD, that is not ITs will for me, today.
today, or just for today, i see a need to open my mind that regardless of the spiritual path my peers may take, they too have gone through or are going through a process to figure this out for themselves. their processes, no matter how brief or superficial they may appear to my closed mind, are what they needed to do. i NEED to get off my high horse and accept that as fact. the problem lies with me and certainly not with my peers, and when they say they are “blessed,” i need to accept that they actually feel blessed. after all, it was recovery that gave me a path to something greater and if that is my experience, i have to allow that perhaps it is theirs as well. certainly a good place for me start, just for today.
i live in the real world, secular, loud and crowded as it is. i constantly feel the pressure to conform with what was once the dominant spiritual path in my culture. the fact is, even when i just “went with the flow,” i never truly believed i was doing anything, save going through the motions, to look like i was part of something greater. today, coming to find a path outside the dominating spiritual tradition of my peers, has given me a freedom i never thought was possible, and perhaps what i have been waiting for is a celebration of that difference, rather than the rebellious diffidence i have been expressing. perhaps what i need to do, is stop looking down on those who choose that path and join them as equals on the same level.
i can certainly say that ever since i walked into the rooms, there has been a chip on my shoulder about this whole religion versus spirituality dichotomy. my attitude when i came in, was that those who believed, must somehow be inferior because they could not take control of their own lives and relied on “manna from heaven,” to save their bacon, time and again. over time, as i grew into my spiritual path, that attitude went from open expression, to being buried somewhere deep within my judgement machine, and it still gets triggered when one of my peers, starts going on about how “blessed,” they may be today. the second part of that unsavory judgement machine is that those peer who follow that particular path are just plain lazy. they did not even bother to explore other paths and only pay lip service to the notion of coming to believe, that two pronged attack on my peers, separates me from them and feeds a bias and prejudice machine that spews out hate and arrogance not to dissimilar to some of the supporters of the current POTUS.
writing about the nature of my disrespect and the core of my arrogance about the journey i took to find an understanding of the POWER that fuels my recovery, opens a channel of emotion, regret and yes shame over how i narrow-minded and hypocritical i can be and suggests that what is keeping my from moving on, is my abiding belief, right or probably wrong, that somehow i have an elevated sense of spirituality. what should be uniting me with my peers, keeps me from them, time and again. i am more than certain that no matter how i see and understand GOD, that is not ITs will for me, today.
today, or just for today, i see a need to open my mind that regardless of the spiritual path my peers may take, they too have gone through or are going through a process to figure this out for themselves. their processes, no matter how brief or superficial they may appear to my closed mind, are what they needed to do. i NEED to get off my high horse and accept that as fact. the problem lies with me and certainly not with my peers, and when they say they are “blessed,” i need to accept that they actually feel blessed. after all, it was recovery that gave me a path to something greater and if that is my experience, i have to allow that perhaps it is theirs as well. certainly a good place for me start, just for today.
∞ DT ∞