It is an evolving thing really...at least for me. It is something that I have always felt. Always. However, my younger years were spent intermittently fearing it and seeking it. I wanted what I believed religious people had...I was just very skeptical about what I had to do to get there. And I tried. I went to church with my friends’ families as my family didn’t and wouldn’t go. God, and the seeking of anything remotely spiritual fell prey to intellectualism in my home growing up. We believed in what you could read, touch, and prove.
But for me, I always had this dialog going with something other than me. I don’t think I came to call that God until I got sober. I didn’t honestly know that I was even doing that. But my first sponsor told me that I could not be mad at a God I didn’t believe in...I had to stop and take inventory about what I actually really did believe.
And it took a long time of digging through my own ego and bravado and cynicism. A lot of work to get through my denial and absolute certainty that I did not need God and I was sure God had no use for me.
And in many ways this internal archaeological dig for God within me persists. It has become, for me anyway, a life long seeking and understanding, then misunderstanding and then believing and understanding more deeply. It has been a deep, life affirming process, pock marked with times where I felt that there absolutely was no God and if there was, he fucking hated me.
I don’t believe that God hates anyone. Not even Trump. For me, God is more of an ethos. God is above our human emotions and fragilities. Although my God absolutely, 100% has a fucking sense of humor. It is wry and a little sarcastic. This is just me, you are free to come up with your conception and I highly encourage you to do so. It matters not what it is, it matters that you believe in something loving, kind and supportive.
And that has been a very long and arduous process for me. Filled with a great deal of suffering (Erin created) and being forced through the pain of my choices to have to seek God in new ways and with fervor I previously did not possess.
All of the shit things that have happened to me, have absolutely happened for me. They have been lessons one and all. And while God would have preferred me to learn some of them earlier than I did, I absolutely believe that my God sits and says, “fuck, better give that one to her again, she completely doesn’t see it, like at all...”
God has had to do that a lot with me for some things. Men and intimacy have been my biggest struggle. And feels like the final horizon for me. Relationships are where my work festers. Other lessons, like I am a drunk and need to be sober. While that was a very painful one indeed, I got rather quickly and completely from the word go, even though I did it all wrong, with a bad attitude and not very skillfully. I am still here plugging away at this whole living sober thing, rapidly approaching 30 amazing years.
Today, there is not one thing I do in my day that I don’t feel God in my life. Sure, sometimes I treat this presence like it is an overtalkative first grader and politely point it into a corner to just shhhh a minute. But most of the time, from the moment my eyes open until they close in the evening, I am very aware of this loving, guiding spirit who wants me to heal, to love, to learn, to serve and to grow. And all of those things are meant to be shared. I am not to grow in ways and then keep my findings to myself. No, I am sure, absolutely sure, that I go and grow through what I do and I am absolutely supposed to share that.
This blog is the place I do that. Every single day almost without exception. I reflect, I feel, I write and I share. It is like I have to get it out of me, pin it to the screen, in order to reflect upon it and hold it and gain some insight from the things that happen, the things I do, the way I feel and the way all of that mixes and blends together to grow me into whomever I am supposed to be next.
This is not always a fun process. In fact, pain has and likely always will be the touchstone of all spiritual growth for me. And I have to say it feels better knowing this God that I do not understand, cannot define is there with me all day, every day as I muddle through the process fucking it up and having to fix it repeatedly.
I think the best way I can describe my relationship to this Divinity today is that it is loving. Always. Sometimes with a bit of tough love, sometimes with an edginess that I totally respect, this benevolent and loving force in my life, uses you, animals, circumstances and every minute of every day to grow me up and into the person I am supposed to be.
There is no wasted effort, ever. Everything I do, see, hear, become and survive is useful in this God consciousness for me, and for others I am privileged to engage. There is no subtle economy in spiritual matters for me. It is a largess of loss, gain, pain, joy, sorrow, elation, evolution and destabilization, always.
So from my earliest memories until now, I remain committed and transfixed to this continual, ever evolving God consciousness that grants me passage and safety to a better way of being in this world. Sure, sometimes I am stubborn and have to live in a manner that is more painful than it really needs to be. Nothing is ever wasted though. And I can see every single one of my failures as an entry point for a major, life altering change.
And I never have to do it alone. This loving benevolence moves with me throughout the day, all day every day, over and over. And while I do not think I will ever comprehend it, I do find myself coming to rely upon it more and more with each breath I take.
God is loving kindness to me, for me, with me and uses me as an instrument to deliver that to others. Sometimes my humanness gets in the way and instead of loving kindness I bring pain or hardship or brokenness. But that is supremely useful too.
This ever evolving consciousness has made a fundamental and life affirming basis for me. A safe place to return to when I choose chaos and confusion repeatedly. I think the lesson I am working on, quite diligently right now, is learning to let go of the familiar hell and grant passage for an unfamiliar heaven. To me heaven and hell always refer to mental states and not actual places. What I think and feel are more than enough to deliver me to my own personal hell or heaven, all day, every day.
So I begin this fine Sunday willing to learn. To grow beyond my current comfort zone that is so limited and stunted. I welcome in this loving force and will do my best to align my life with universal will today. I will fail as my needs, codependence and brokenness jumpstart my evolution and take center stage repeatedly. But in this God consciousness evolving I know I have a safe and stable place to return, always.
So I keep moving toward the light, sometimes dragging my bag of darkness with me. Trusting there will always be this munificence who has my back, wants good things for me, and will always give me exactly what I need when I need it. It is a desperate faith really, but one that grows and expands with each breath I take and with each moment that passes.
Again...still.
Always.
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