Blog entry for:

fit my spiritual experiences into the natural pattern of recovery and spiritual growth.
so i did something last night, that i have not done in quite some time, i CHOSE not to go to one of the meetings that is part of my routine. i COULD say, and it would be true, that i was feeling ill, but not that sick. i COULD that i did not need to go to a meeting last night and that would also be true. the actual truth, is i consciously wanted to stay home, play me silly game and just veg out. amazingly while meeting with my sponsee yesterday afternoon, he showed me some insight into what another addict shared, something i choose not to comment on, but he was in my opinion spot on, and he thanked me for being his sponsor. i always cringe, when someone says that even privately, that i know is part of the collection of character defects that still are part of me. low self-worth. after all, how can i be of any value to anyone else, when i am of little or no value to myself. so this morning, as i sit here feeling MEH, but not sick enough to call in, i get a notion of something more happening around me. no my character defects are not morphing into anything else, but they are certainly being stripped of their heinous shape and beginning to look like the human attributes they may have once been. sometimes i am amazed by what is being seen by others, in myself as well as by my peers. so perhaps the stench i detect but cannot pin down, is reality after all.
however, the reading was about the spiritual experience and learning how to fit that experience into my life and myself. i certainly would love to say, that i am never shaken about the spiritual side of this program. i denied that it existed forever. did what i could to disqualify myself from it and dismissed, derided and discounted the experiences of others, who took a more traditional view of the face of their spiritual experiences. what i have learned as a result of all of that, comes back to the line from the play about a Danish prince:
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
the spiritual experience is still new to me, and by exploring it without the framework of an organized religion, makes it even for foreign. in the long run, the experience of those who have walked this path before me, without the guidance of that framework, show me that i am on the correct path and moving in the proper direction. i need not spin what i do not understand into something that makes sense, nor do i need to hide what i am resistant to change under the guise of a spiritual experiencing.
there may be many different looks to a program of recovery, each as unique as the individual that is experiencing it, but in the end, there is a single overarching process, that is the same for anyone who walks this path humbly and in the present tense. i can cheat, lie and manipulate my way through my recovery, OR i can allow the process that has freed millions of addicts worldwide, to work its magic on me.
today i will accept that i do not have all the answers, and will also accept that the path i am walking, well-trodden and worn as it is, is that way BECAUSE of those who have gone before me, and not despite them.

∞ DT ∞