Since even before I got sick I felt like I was suffering from a poor connection with HP. Looking back, it appears that I’ve been running on self will for some time, but I’ve been sober so something must be going OK. I think. Anyway, illness has left “that which is lacking” in in even worse shape than it was before, leading me to feel like God is unconscious; that God NEEDS us in order to have conscious experience. Making God unconscious is easier to accept than the idea that I’m “right where I need to be.” And if I’m right where I need to be does that include questioning the spiritual stuff from scratch?
I talked to a couple of other people about it, people who had profound spiritual awakening and then lost it, and they’ve told me things like “you can’t be enlightened all the time” or “I got my connection back, but it was never the same again. It never had the same kind of power.” That frightens me. I want so much to have that great fire kind of experience return and I fear that it won’t. I feel disconnected. I feel apart from God.
When I got to the program I was agnostic. Today I feel atheistic, and I don’t like it. Wishing for the end is easy when there isn’t a greater purpose. I’m not at that place, emotionally, the place of “wishing for the end”, but I can still see it from where I am, and I don’t like that either.
I haven’t been able to persuade myself to pray to a God I don’t know if I believe in, and I still don’t have enough of an attention span to meditate (or write) effectively. Perhaps the “effectively” part doesn’t matter so much as making the effort matters. I should be open-minded enough to try, but I don’t, or haven’t yet.
Is this just part and parcel of being ill or did I break something that I’ll never get back?
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“god as i understand him” has been THE best thing ever for me spiritually. i came into the program so closed minded and thinking i knew everything. being willing to crack that door and understand that god was far bigger than the teenie tiny box i had constructed.
i had an angry bastard of a god when i started. in program i met people whose god was kind and loving. i decided that i was going to borrow their god for a short period of time and figured i could always switch back to bastard god if i needed to later…
i also realized in this process that if god was really god then i needed him to be at least as merciful as i was – who would want a supreme being that couldn’t be more loving than the most loving person i knew, right? and so god began to expand and grow into a far more real, large presence in my life than that hater i grew up with.
and it’s working. i think so many times that what we believe in makes us who we are. i was pretty much a hater back then too.
the buddhists have a belief (forgive me if i totally mess this up – not buddhist myself) that if you are walking down the road and meet the buddha you need to kill him because he isn’t truly the buddha, but if you follow him you won’t get to the real one – i think sometimes when the connection isn’t working it’s during that time of killing the buddha – god is reinventing himself/itself/herself so that the seeking is part of the process. most spiritual traditions reward the seeker – it’s not the end that is the goal, but the process itself.
i truly believe that if you seek you will find chris – and according to my tradition he rewards those that seek him. that is true in my life.
have you ever read paulo cohelo? he has an allegory called “the alchemist’ – short fiction, sweeping story – a beautiful metaphor for seeking and finding. one of my favorite books.
i also highly recommend a quaker called parker palmer – his ‘let your life speak’ changed me forever. they are just short essays he collected – but in his silence he has touched on some beautiful truth that i have never found put into language like he uses. lovely, lovely words.
and if i can encourage you at all – every time i endure ‘the dark night of the soul’ – those silent times god seems so far away – what comes back to me is far deeper and richer than i had ever experienced before. we were made to be spiritual beings. the 3-legged stool of recovery almost requires it – i don’t think you’ve lost the thread, i just think it may have changed colors and you haven’t noticed it yet.
saying a prayer for you even as i type. much love dear step-brother.
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I think your questions are good. Good questions are very important to meaningful discovery.
I am on the outs with HP myself. I can relate to what bobbie says, about knowing the angry bastard god and not being satisfied with that. I haven’t found the answer. I just don’t know. I suspect there is an answer out there, but I’m afraid to look right now. I hope I will want to look in the near future, because I think I need the spiritual connection.
Good luck, Chris.
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…….or are you just trying to replace the initial rush of meth with “that great fire kind of experience” of reveling in some kind of god? Will you continue to conduct your whole life as one stumble for a rush to another stumble towards another rush of a different type?
I’ve never been through the 12 steps, so that’s all a mystery to me. I wonder, though, if there’s light and life after meth and then the 12 step zombie house that you haven’t found yet.
I’m glad you’re feeling better. Maybe you don’t need euphoria, though.
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Gratitude lists nightly A thru Z…you yourself have said “gratitude and misery cannot coexist within yourself at the same time.” Spiritual Readings outside the program I highly recommend…like bobbie said. Go down to the library find the spiritual/religous section and see what Calls you. The capital C is a hint. Dont force it….let It come to You.
Help Others…anyone….anyone at all and that will get you closer, especially if your first thought afterward is on your HP…
Lastly…..”God could and would IF HE WERE SOUGHT”
Go looking
Love ya
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Praying to that creepy, sinister, vengeful and wrathful Abrahamic God of the Old Testament that I was raised on is problematic for me too. I take the Jingle Bells approach, especially in meetings where we say the “our Father” to close meetings: I have been singing Jingle Bells all my life, and have never once been in a sleigh, I don’ t know what half the words even mean (what is a bell on a bob tail, and how and/or why does it ring?), but I share in the spirit of the thing, if not the literal meaning of the words, so I go along.
There is an introduction to meditation in “Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness” by Sharon Salzberg that totally made meditation work for me, and it is awesome because for me it counts as meditation and prayer, and it doesn’t have to take hours. In it, I essentially ask for myself and others to be free from danger, to have physical happiness, to have mental happiness, and to have ease of wellbeing. I don’t pray to a god, I just ask “May I be free from danger. May I have physical happiness. May I have mental happiness. May I have ease of wellbeing.” Then I do it (repeatedly) for others. Today I am going to do it for you.
I enjoy the freedom of not being asked to believe in anything other than life can be better for us all, which I do.
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or you could sing jingle bells during the prayer! ha!
i really liked what jack said about getting outside myself – that helps me a lot. sometimes i meet god in other people. kind of like god w/ skin on.
and to be called back to the â€God could and would IF HE WERE SOUGHT†– thanks Jack, needed that BB reminder.
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so maybe i am being preachy here and if that’s the case, my apologies. my intention is to offer another perspective. just like in a meeting, please take what you need and leave the rest….
one book that has shaped my sanity in sobriety is pema chodron’s “when things fall apart”. she’s buddhist, however that is not why i adore the sentiment. her history is partially why i buy in. she was a housewife living in new mexico and married to a trucker. she was relatively happy and felt her life was grounded and going to grow. her husband came home one day and told her he had met another woman and would be leaving. she was, appropriately, devatstated. having no idea what to do next, she decided to go to India as several of the Beatles were there studying spirituality. she thought that sounded as good an idea as any. through a series of events, she has become a world class Buddhist nun, teacher, author, and lecturer. She has transformed her life and the lives of many, many, many others.
So when she writes about things falling apart, I happen to believe her. She has been in the throes of shit falling apart.
In her book, she offers that when things fall apart, what we need to do is NOT do what we always do. Instead, pause and let the universe make the next move. Don’t fill the empty space caused by a crumble with ourselves, but let the space remain and fill itself naturally. This is change. This is growth. She reminds us that things continue to fall apart and come together . That is life.Chris – I believe you are much more grounded and healthy than you may think. Breathe in for a minute. Miracles happen…
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