Wants versus needs, baby, wants versus needs. This is a crucial fact of my life. Am I listening to my heart or am I listening to my mind? My heart is never going to fail me while my mind can lead me astray.
The interconnectedness of all people and all things - what a miracle! The ability to hold tightly onto friends while realizing that some will fade or drift or be placed outside my life. Feeling that connection anyway. Making sure I push forward, but loosely and with awareness. Wear the world like a loose garment.
I was thinking about my spiritual life/growth yesterday after reading the part in Bill W's story about his White Light Experience. Struck with belief. Jolted into the spiritual world. Ah . . . nuts. I've known this to have happened to approximately zero people during my time in recovery. Most of us come to grasp our faith kicking and screaming and clawing our eyes out. I grew up in a standard Christian church and I didn't find it particularly annoying and I didn't find it particularly comforting. Somewhat annoying and somewhat comforting at times, sure, but as sort of a background hum and not a big, constant, in-your-face presence. I was reassured in a vague, non-specific way by the insistence that there was something bigger than me floating around out there somewhere although the idea of Good and Evil leading to Heaven or Hell was not helpful at all. Terrifying, in fact. I freaked out about a root canal. How do you think I might react to an image of burning for all eternity in a lake of fire? Jesus H. Christ, who comes up with this stuff? I listened to my mother say "If I should die before I wake, I hope the Lord my soul to take" as I was lying in bed trying to get sleepy. That really helped. Insert into the mind of a fearful, anxious child some imagery about dying while sleeping. That'll get them to settle down.
If you look at the records people have left behind as soon as they were able to draw on cave walls you find food, sex, and Gods, so I don't feel too bad about having internalized a sense that I'm not the pinnacle of the universe. I say a casual hello to my Christian God every morning in my Quiet Time - being careful to not be too servile, scraping, and obsequious, letting this God know I'm doing him a big favor and not the other way around. I also add a request that all of the doubts I feel and wavering I experience be taken into account as a pretty reasonable request for some pretty implausible dogma. In a nutshell: God comes down to earth and takes the form of a man; dies and goes to Hell where he defeats death and evil and Satan; then rises from the dead and floats up to heaven like a big helium balloon where he dwelleth for ever and ever and ever? How about the parable where he changes water into wine? If I'm God in a human form I'm going to change gravel into diamonds or shrubbery into super models, that kind of miracle.
Although an active alcoholic would probably be pretty excited over the ability to turn tap water into alcohol.
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