Just when I think I’ve got Him nailed down (no pun intended), what I think I know about God changes. That is to say, for me at least, God is in the act of seeking, not the finding. There are aspects of Buddhism that I find very attractive for that reason. Coming to meditation with a ‘beginner’s mind,’ for example. Or the prayer some people in AA, and perhaps other 12 step programs, call the set-aside prayer. Nothing quite beats a fresh start.
My sister sent me this little story the other day. I’m the kind of guy who secretly likes to watch Little House on the Prairie but I do it alone because I don’t want anyone to see me cry. This story had me crying like that, and though it is told from a Christian philosophy it’s not hard to see the universal spiritual truth in it. It’s a 3rd and 11th step story. For all the looking for God in the pages of the Big Book, and others, in prayer, in writing and in the stories of others who travel this curious path, I ultimately find that all these things provide a framework, or a frame, for my understanding of God to exist in. But I don’t find God in the framework, not in the words of a prayer or the words in a book, not in the words of someone’s story. I find God in the space in between; in the silence. I find God in what is not said but is understood.
My first step was like that. I mentioned Phillip Glass in another post and I mention it again for the more curious and adventurous among you. There is a Glass piece called “Pruitt Igoe” that would be the soundtrack if the moment of my first step were a movie. Tension. Repetition. Intensification. Intensification. Intensification and . . . . silence. Longer silence than one might expect. Longer than is even comfortable. Profound silence. And a return to the tension and repetition, but more slowly, more quietly. Transformed. I could neither quiet the noise in my head or the pain in my heart till my heart finally broke. Then I could have heard snow falling. And I could feel God move into the broken space. It took another month to stay sober, to get myself physically removed from harm’s way and somewhere that sobriety was valued and expected.
Now I never know where I’ll find God, but it’s always in the white space.
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October 27, 2007 at 8:57 am
DKThinker
I just love that, “God is in the act of seeking….”
Also, in the white space.
Sometimes, I think we never really find God in our lives, but only his reflection, off other things and people. Only enough to convince us that he MAY be out there, and to keep us looking.
It does seem to me that He only doles out joy, and happiness, when we get outside of ourselves. When we give away, and forget ourselves, for a moment.
Maybe that’s the purpose of pain, to get us out of ourselves. Nothing makes my pain lessen more than seeing someone worse off than myself, in more pain, such that I see myself as less central to the universe, put myself and my pain in perspective. And my pain lessens most when I am able to help another lessen their pain. Funny how that works, isn’t it? Counter-intuitive, that we would have to go outward, to heal inward.
IMHO, FWIW
-DeeK
PS - somebody teach me how to make italics in these posts, please
October 27, 2007 at 9:48 am
Chris
“Nothing makes my pain lessen more than seeing someone worse off than myself.” I know you’re talking about something kinder than schadenfreude but even the Germans may be on to something with that, eh? But you’re right. That’s exactly what I was saying about a frame or a framework.
There isn’t much room for God to work in the frame created by 2 whole people relating to each other. But 2 broken people, one reaching out to the other, makes a great big space for God. And you’re right, at least in my experience, that all I really see is Godshine. What I see is reflected or echoed (if absolute silence can echo - but you know what I’m saying.). I just haven’t been able to see or hear for a few days and it’s making me insane. I keep running after something that I need to sit still for and the more afraid I get that I’ve lost it the more I do shit that won’t get me back to it. I wish I had an “Off” button. Or “Recharge” -
It really is that I’m at the Texaco station and I don’t know how to pump gas.
October 27, 2007 at 1:07 pm
DKThinker
Yeah, I’m not talking Schadenfreude, or codependency. I’m talking about getting around to the real work, eventually, in life.
Our Purpose, should we find it, along the Journey.
-DeeK
November 1, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Mighty Morgan
I loved this part
“I find God in the space in between; in the silence. I find God in what is not said but is understood.”
The best thing I discovered through the course of my own recovery is that I was able to finally look past the limited “frame” of perceptions i held about my prior understanding of who and what the God of my understanding was and currently is…….much like you as soon as I thought I had it “nailed” down….I always realized that there was so much MORE to be revealed to me if simply I allowed it……..