The God Thing

This comes up over and over and while I used to fuss at the “God thing” conversations, now I think it makes sense. In Twelve-Step recovery it’s all about having a spiritual awakening. The steps tell us: “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps…”

I remember when someone pointed that out to me. We don’t get abstinence or sobriety as a result of the steps—we get a spiritual awakening. And then, of course, as Carl Jung explained to Roland (and later to Bill Wilson) we do get sobriety as a result of that spiritual awakening. It’s a subtle but important point.

The other thing I like to think about is that it doesn’t say God. Thank you to “AA Number Three” who gave us “God as we understand Him” which opened the door much wider then the Oxford Group would ever have allowed. So we have that parenthetical statement and a Higher Power, which lets us choose.

But we do have to choose.

Here’s the other thing that I learned form a spiritual director that I like to pass on to women that I sponsor—and remind myself: Your HP doesn’t have to be a God but it has to be bigger than you. You want a “Bigger” as your Higher Power. It might be Goodness or The Ocean or Nature or Science but with our egos and our insecurity we need something Bigger.

And then—here’s another part I missed for years--you have to put yourself in the presence of your Higher Power. It’s why people who have God as their HP go to church or temple. But if your Higher Power is another kind of being or entity you still have to spend time in its presence. For example—if Nature is your Higher Power do you go on a nature walk once a week? If it’s the Ocean do you get to the beach to connect with it? If it’s Beauty are you making art a priority in your life?

Isn’t this a great question: What is your Higher Power and do you put yourself in its presence—regularly?

On New Year's Day

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
     to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
     unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
     that it is made by passing through
     some stages of instability—
     and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
     your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
     let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
     as though you could be today what time
     (that is to say, grace and circumstances
     acting on your own good will)
     will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
     gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
     that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
     in suspense and incomplete.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Who's in Charge of My Life?

I overheard this at a meeting last week. It made me think.

"If God is your co-pilot slide over."

Temp for God

Here is a spiritual strategy that I learn, practice and then forget and then, like this week, remember and start practicing again. When I do remember to do this my work days are so much better.

This started when I was working in an organization that hired temps to get through the busy times. I noticed that most of the temps we hired were pleasant, hard working and willing to do whatever needed to be done. They showed up each day and did what was on that day’s list. There was no sense of right, wrong, should, shouldn’t, not-my-job or “Why me?” I thought, “What if I came to work like that each day?”

So now, when I remember, I think of myself as a temporary worker. The temp agency that I work for is God. In my morning prayer I say, “OK, God I’m temping for you today; whatever shows up is what you are asking me to do and like a good temp I’ll do it pleasantly, willingly and without debate; where are you sending me today God?”

The temp agencies always seemed to send us mugs as a thank you gift. So maybe I need to get a mug for my desk that says, Temp for God.

Spiritual Direction

In AA we know the value of having a sponsor and being a sponsor. The standard advice is to “Find someone who has what you want and ask them to be your sponsor”. I always find that funny because when I was a few weeks into recovery I heard that very advice and I saw a woman in my home group who was tall and blonde (I am not), a published author (I was not) and who was well-dressed (always my aspiration) so I asked HER to be my sponsor!

This is also a God story because she turned out to also have things I had not yet seen: good recovery, a generous heart and a sassy way of living her recovery. We did the steps together, attended lots of meetings together and she also told me, “You didn’t get sober to wear sack cloth and ashes so go shopping.” Perfect.

So God is woven in and out. People talk about the “spiritual part” of the program and I remember another good sponsor telling me, “there is no spiritual PART—it’s all spiritual.”

Toward that end some of us add another layer of help to our recovery and work with a spiritual director. This can be someone else in a 12 step program who has the kind of spiritual life we’d like—and like sponsorship we can “ask them how they got it.” Some of us have gone to faith communities, inter-faith practitioners or retreat centers and worked with a spiritual director for a week, a month or a year.

I have done this three times over the years when I wanted to talk thru my conception of God, when I wanted to acquire some new spiritual practices and recently when step work bumped right into reservations I was holding about God and surrender.

So I’m interested in your experiences: Have you tried spiritual direction? What was your motive and did it help your recovery and growth?

God's Voice

I wrote this in my journal in 1995. I heard this from the woman who was my spiritual director at the time. She said: “God’s voice is very subtle. Each day in prayer look for the one thing in the day before that struck you as an impulse, a thought, an image or an idea. Train yourself to see and hear and feel the subtle.”

To do this, she said, you have to get quiet. Get a more quiet life.

Looking for Signs

I laugh now at how many times in my life I have prayed for a sign to let me know if I was on the right path or for help in making a decision. In very difficult moments I have begged for skywriting from the universe and just last week I told a friend that I’m still waiting for an envelope from God with my name on it. Maybe I watched too many episodes of Mission Impossible as a kid, but part of me wants instructions that spell out exactly what I should do with my life.

I know God doesn’t work that way, but I also know I’m not alone in wanting him to. Some people flip coins or watch birds or follow the crude metals index. Others keep psychics in business and ensure that books on spiritual guidance top the bestseller lists. I’ve tried it all and I’ve been to Tarot readers, thrown the I Ching and I have a well-worn set of Rune stones.

Years ago when people close to me were dying and I was tearfully demanding to know God’s will, a friend who was more experienced in grief chastised and reassured me by saying, “Gods will is what is”. The simplicity and profundity of that statement silenced me for a while.

But I come back again to wanting to know, and often it’s at this time of year and there’s a good reason. As the winter begins and we are faced with dark and cold there is a pull from deep in our bones that drive us to seek light and answers. The need for light at this time of year is so great that we adapted culturally to give it to ourselves. We've had Hanukkah, now Solstice and  soon Christmas, all great stories about finding light.

The part of the Christmas story that has always meant the most to me is that of the three wise men making their journey, traveling on a hunch, a belief, and their deep wanting. They had studied the sky for years and then they saw their sign.

In his poem, Journey of the Magi T.S. Eliot wrote: “At the end we preferred to travel all night, sleeping in snatches, with the voices singing in our ears, that this was all folly.”

Of course that is the problem with star following. You just don’t know. We see this most painfully now looking at the news. Stories of young men and women as heroes in war and others, the same age who commit terrible crimes. All of them following their stars. But how do you know until you show up whether there’s going to be a baby or a bullet?

So the wise men’s lesson is all about faith: We do our best, we study, we consult with others, we try to be wise men and women, but we have to get on our camels, bring our gifts and hope we are doing good.

This is solstice week and these are our darkest days. We cope in the most ancient of ways. We go toward the light--to neon and the mall, to crowds of shoppers, even as our ancient relatives were drawn to stars and the fire.

Through all of this we’ll read our horoscopes. We’ll hope our loved ones will be spared the only thing that no one can be which is death. We’ll look at the night sky and try to believe. No wonder a baby born in a barn is a great story. No wonder we look for signs.

Two roads diverged...

And you will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the path. Walk ye in it.”


---------Isaiah 30:21 The King James Bible

Temp for God

(This entry is back by popular request. Many readers asked for this again for themselves and for friends).




Here is a spiritual strategy that I began practicing a couple of years ago. I wish I remembered to do this every day because when I do, my days are so much better.

This came to me when I was working in an organization that hired temps to get through busy times. I noticed that most of the temps were pleasant, hard working and willing to do whatever needed to be done. They showed up each day and did what was on that day’s list. There was no sense of right, wrong, should, shouldn’t, not-my-job or why me? I thought, “What if I came to work like that each day?”

So now-- when I remember-- I think of myself as a temporary worker and that the temp agency that I work for is God. In my morning prayer I say, “OK, God I’m temping for you today; whatever shows up is what you are asking me to do and like a good temp I’ll do it pleasantly, willingly and without debate; where are you sending me today God?”

Maybe this new agency needs mugs that say: Temp for God.

Relationship with God

I have been thinking about my relationship with God. I’ve always believed in God but I’ve had a nagging worry about whether he believes in me. Then I realized that this too is a relationship and it is subject to, and victim of, all that I bring to my other intimate relationships: I know I’m loved but not always sure I’m seen; I think he may have loved someone before me; I think that if someone better came along he’d leave me; I think that I have to be good to keep his love. Bottom-line: I worry that I’m not enough.

The work that I do to change those beliefs about God begins to change my other relationships, and as I heal those old beliefs about how I was or was not loved in my past or present it can only improve my relationship with God.

God yes, it is a relationship and we’re working on it.

Quit Playing God

“First of all, we had to quit playing God.”

--Bill W.

There is the heart of recovery.
And, yes, the very hardest part of this whole thing.
Quit playing God.
Simple but not easy.

A Punishing God?

Many gifts in “Lit”, Mary Karr’s new book. Here is one that helped me.

Karr describes talking to her spiritual director about her concept of God. Karr realizes that she has many times felt abandoned or punished by God. She says—and this is what hit home for me—“How is that possible; I have no childhood experience of a punishing God?”

I’ve said that same thing. I grew up in a very “God is Love” church, my parents disdained any hint of fire or fear where God was concerned, so I have for a long time been baffled by my own ideas about God.

But Karr’s spiritual director responds to her saying this: “We often strap onto God the mask of whoever hurt us as children. If you’ve been neglected, God seems cold; if you’ve been bullied, he’s a tyrant. If you’re filled with self-hatred, then God is a monster making inventor.”

Bingo! My fear of God wasn’t of any God I was taught about in Church or Sunday school, but I did dress up God in the garb of my unpredictable speed-addicted mother and my kindly, well-intentioned but un-protecting father. Even as they swore that God loved me, my God was dressed in their behaviors toward me.

Now the task is to undress my God. And maybe pick Him a new role model from my loving, caring recovery community.

Your Own Higher Power

In AA we talk about choosing a Higher Power or creating one that works for you. People choose the God of their childhood—or adult-- faith. Some use their 12 step group as the power greater than themselves and others recommend using the concept of G.ood O.rderly D.irection if a Higher Being just doesn’t work.

Now I’m reading a great new book that gives us the means and the intellectual support to choose the God of our understanding. No pastel prettiness for spiritual toddlers here but a lot of intellectual food that takes grown-up teeth to chew on. The book is, “Beyond Faith: Our Role in Transforming God” by William Penick.

In his book Penick takes apart the idea of faith and of gods that are too big and indifferent or that are too small and ineffectual. He makes a compelling—and strongly supported case—that we can find (create) a God that is plausible and relevant. This is a book for spiritual seekers willing to tackle big ideas and some theological and intellectual history, but it’s worth it to get a God that works for you.

Redeemed

I have just started reading a great new book called “Redeemed” by Heather King. It’s great already and I have only read the Introduction where she makes a fast and funny case for why alcoholics and addicts need God--and Jesus in particular—and she describes the lived, alcoholic difference between pleasure and joy.

So check this out. Go to your local (preferably independent) bookstore and read the introduction. You’ll laugh with your coat on.

And please, buy this and all your books from an independent (non-chain, non-Amazon) bookstore. Think of it as supporting a really important nonprofit. (There is hardly any profit anyway) and having locally owned bookstores is so important to the literary and cultural life of a community. The people in those stores read actual books and they know literature. Your spending in those stores is your vote for the life of the mind and for intelligent thought.

Good Enough for God?

I’m working on these old beliefs and these “voices” that try to convince me that I am not good enough and that I will be abandoned. Using the tools of Cognitive Therapy helps a lot. And the Tapping (see the January 7 2009 entry) helps too. I know that this new work could only have come after some sobriety because I get to see what’s really behind the “ism”.

I have been working Step Two—asking God to restore me to sanity. These old persistent beliefs –schema in cognitive therapy talk--certainly are a kind of insanity. Today I realized that one of the problems is that my fear that I am not good enough applies not just to how I am in relationships but also with God. I think that I even fear that I am not good enough for God. Other people will be restored to sanity but not me? Other people will be healed but not me? Here is the real pain of these old beliefs. They interfere not only with friends, lovers and family but they attempt to cut me off from God as well.

My solution then has to come from God. To take this fear and this old belief and say—as I would in any important relationship---“my head is trying to convince me that I’m not good enough for you, and these old deep beliefs want me to believe I can't have your care for my life, so we gotta talk about this.”

This is certainly one of the things I cannot fix myself. This is where I turn to the 7th step prayer: “…remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.”

I assure you, all of the fellows in my life have been affected by my schema/old beliefs/defects of character.

Thinking About God

I talk to my therapist about how these “schema” or old beliefs intersect to create a perfect storm: I believe I am defective so I will be abandoned, to prevent that I subjugate myself to be “better” hoping that by pleasing you I can assure that you will like me. But I know I’m not being real so that reinforces the deprivation belief that no one would ever love the real me. And on and on. I have seen this play out in my 4th step inventories. When we talk about using the 4th and 5th steps to get at “the exact nature of our wrongs” we really are talking about these schema or old beliefs. We have that recovering person’s dilemma: I didn’t cause it, much was implanted and reinforced in childhood and I played it out over and over in my behavior and choices before—and yes, into, recovery. But I am responsible now. I wish it was as easy as that sounds. Knowing these are old beliefs, that these are errors in my thinking. But they are strong and deep and they fight for their own survival.

But there is another place these old beliefs trap me. I ask for help. I pray. I surrender to my Higher Power—God. “Do you believe in a loving God? I am asked. I always say yes and on a conscious level I think, yes. But when I am quiet and when I let my mind settle in prayer then I see. Even here, even with God, I think, “Not me, everyone else but not me.” Even with God—the one I am asking to restore me to sanity, I have the sinking feeling that miracles are for the good people, the loved ones.

So I back up and begin again. Before I ask God to restore me to sanity we have to have a talk about our relationship. Like the child in me I have to ask, again and again: Do you love me, as I am, now, here, with this very life, with these very “defects of character”—the antiquated language of trying to describe the schema. Like a child to a parent: “I broke everything; do you still love me?”

A Partner with God

In my 20’s I returned to college as an older student. I had no money, and I lived on school loans. I sold my car, clothes, stereo and records to be able to go back to school. I was awarded an internship in Washington, DC. and I said yes even though I had no money. I borrowed some money for housing and ate as cheaply as possible. Every week I would measure out my peanut butter and crackers and instant oatmeal packets. Other women in my dorm who had family support and paid internships would bring me doggie bags from the Georgetown restaurants they went to at night. I was scared and hungry but I was happy. I was happy to be in school, happy to have an exciting internship, happy to be in DC and to be able to visit all the free museums and go to free lectures and concerts every weekend.

What sustained me in those months was a series of pamphlets from Norman Vincent Peale. They were the positive thinking, faith in God, personal story pamphlets. I hung onto them for dear life.

In some ways my recovery and my faith in a higher power were beginning then even as my addictions were still sending up their first shoots.

There was one message that I copied from one of the pamphlets. I carried this in my wallet and sometimes cried reading it when I got really scared because I was almost out of rent money or when I didn’t know how I’d get back to Pennsylvania. I had to change the word “man” to “woman” and “him” to “her” but here it is. I keep this in my daily meditation book and I need to read it today:

“A woman who works in partnership with her God becomes self-reliant, positive and optimistic and undertakes her work with the constant assurance of success. She therefore magnetizes her conditions. She draws to herself the creative powers of the universe.”

The Great Fact

In The Big Book there is a chapter called “There is a Solution”. In this section we read the clear statement that recovery is about a relationship with God or a Higher Power:


There is a solution…there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of we had not even dreamed. The great fact is this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God’s Universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.

The God Who ...

Last night in my theology class we talked about prayer and how people can get caught up in “doing it right”: the right prayer, the right way, the right number of times etc. The instructor said, “Ritual can be helpful and consoling but we do have to ask, “Do we believe in the God who saves or the God who measures?”

Is God the Unavailable Man?

I know this emotional habit of mine: seeking the unavailable man. Over the years I have been attracted to men who are married, depressed, workaholics, or who are just emotionally very distant. I have a kind of Velcro for that kind of man and lots of therapy and 12 step recovery has helped. I know where I got this habit. My father was quiet, frightened of life, worked many hours and traveled. I longed for him as a kid and so have sought these unavailable men and tried to either change or win them. That insight isn’t new.

But today in my prayer time I had this thought: Do I also make God an unavailable man? I’m working with a spiritual director now and she encourages me to talk to God about my relationship with him. So when I pray I also say, “I’m not sure you hear me” and “I’m asking for your help and I wonder if you are avoiding me.”

I heard myself. The Unavailable man Velcro is showing up here too. I think God is a distant man who has to be won, coaxed, cajoled, enticed or bargained with. I have been assuming I have to please him and that he is cold with a short attention span.

What if I am wrong about God? Could I really change this relationship? Could I learn to seek the available God in the way that I have slowly—so slowly learned to seek the available man?

What would an available, emotionally resonant God look like? sound like and feel like?

What would it be like to have a warm, caring, available, listening and responding God in my life? What would be different if I lived assuming that is true?