By blundering, we learn.
--Goethe
“Why can’t we take a specific and
troubling dilemma straight to God, and in prayer secure from Him sure and
definite answers to our requests?”
This can be done, but it has hazards. We
have (asked) for God’s explicit guidance on (specific) matters. Quite often,
however, the thoughts that seem to come from God are not answers at all. They
prove to be well-intentioned unconscious rationalizations. The A.A., or indeed
any man, who tries to run his life rigidly by this kind of prayer, by this
self-serving demand of God for replies, is a particularly disconcerting
individual.
--Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (107:0-1)
What used to be the hunch or the
occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being
still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not
probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this
presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find
that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of
inspiration. We come to rely upon it.
--Alcoholics
Anonymous (87:0)
23-Aug-15 | Happy Sunday everyone!
Prayer and meditation has and continues to
play such a valuable role in my personal recovery. It was vitally important and necessary in the
beginning to beg God to defend me against that first drink. I was forbidden to call anyone, especially my
sponsor if I felt like drinking – he understood my Power MUST come from God and
taught me to pray not dial.
Right around the 90 day mark that feeling
that the drink problem was solved came as promised as part of the fifth step promises, and my mind and heart began to turn to other things, and thus my
prayers, too turned to other things.
Somehow in my life’s journey I got the sense that God was some sort of ‘Cosmic
Concierge’, a sort of Coke Machine in the sky, if you will. Deposit 10 minutes of prayer here, reap x
amount of dollars of reward there, and so on.
On poignant example of this spiritually
self-centered adolescence is expressed best in my ill-fated move to Florida
around this time. A guy in the rooms,
knowing my restaurant background and wanting to give me a break, offered me a
job in Longboat Key Florida during the winter of 94/95. Being homeless, jobless and foolish, I said ‘sure’! But wanting to sound spiritual, I added ‘but let me pray on it’.
Back at the homeless shelter, I made a
very public show of getting on my knees at my bunk in front of 100 other guys –
and – out loud – asked for God’s will in this decision. Nearly immediately a radio started playing
outside the window; it was a song that came out the fall called ‘Kokomo’ by the
Beach Boys which extolled a tropical paradise.
THIS WAS IT! I shouted. This was the answer. Florida it is – GOD HAS SPOKEN TO ME!
I collected enough cans to get a greyhound
to Sarasota Florida – against the strong suggestion to the contrary to EVERYONE
I told this story to in AA – but what did they know? GOD HAS SPOKEN.
There may as well have been a tiny thread
connecting my spiritual suit to my sponsor & home group, for the further
that boat travelled from NYC, the faster that metaphorical suit unraveled, till
I was quite falling to pieces when I got to Florida. I walked to the first meeting I could find,
raised my hand and shared my calamity, the vote was unanimous. SEND THIS FOOL BACK TO NYC! So they – and this just one of literally a
thousand examples that come to mind of random acts of charity, patience,
tolerance, kindliness and love committed on my behalf in AA – passed the hat,
collected $122 in bus fare and sent me
home – with a Big Book in my hand, bless their hearts.
What
I did not know – what I could not know at the time – was that being new and
still inexperienced, I needed a GOD WITH SKIN to guide me and review my
new-found God-give God consciousness with me, for having not yet finished the
ninth step, every thought, however inspired, was sullied through the lens of an
unfinished 9th step, thereby rending me in fact spiritually blocked
from the Sunlight of the Spirit.
My sponsor had a nicer way of expressing
this. He called me a ‘Retarded Mystic’. This is not far from the mark. When retelling this story - which he did often and with great relish always to my chagrin, he would close this tale of the foole by adding: 'had David waited one more minute he would have heard the flip side of that record: 'New York NY'.
As one who has long ago recovered from alcoholism
and lives deep in steps 10,11 & 12 I can tell you that I rely on these
thoughts, attiudes and ideas that arise from prayer and meditation unequivocally
undoubtedly and unflaggingly, and quite rarely need benefit of counsel. But occasionally I still do, for I still at
times can play the ‘Greater Foole’ when my ‘new pair of glasses’ are temporarily
befogged with self.
I love each and every one of you. Thank you for my life.
Yours in love and service,
Yours in love and service,
--COG,
1st. Class
Posts
A great writeup of one of my favorite DWR stories.
ReplyDeleteJay