Mr. SponsorPants

Dear People Who Don't Believe in God...

 

Dear People Who Don't Believe in God,

When you describe the God you don't believe in, I'm like, "Cool!  I don't believe in that God either!"

See?  We kinda have more in common on that score than you might think.

Cheers!

Mr. SP

p.s. That's why my faith (usually) works: 'cause I found Something I can believe in -- which can be hard to do, I know -- but mostly only because it's so easy to do.

I can choose

 

 

I can convince myself something is going to be difficult armed with nothing more than a crappy, closed-minded attitude and half an inaccurate fact.

I can remember that I don't always know how things will go, and that if things get hard I can ask for help.

 *

I can convince myself not to try something by deciding before it even begins that I will be hugely disappointed, simply by treating the sad movie in my head as if it is reality.

I can remember that things are often okay -- more than okay -- by admitting there are many possible outcomes, and sometimes I like something in spite of myself -- that it's in the doing where joy is found.

 *

I can convince myself that nothing really matters by constantly deconstructing everything into sterile, abstract bits and pieces -- the dark mirror reverse version of the truism "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

I can remember that the ocean is more than just salt and water, a human is more than just blood and bones, and I am always much more than what my fear and addiction constantly whisper in my ear.

 *

I can convince myself that I am separate from everyone around me -- less than or better than they are -- by obsessively focusing on the differences between us, especially magnifying and distorting trivial things until they become symbolic of all humanity and my alienation from it.

I can remember that it is by listening for the similarities, the feelings in common, the universality of human experience with all its messy, selfish fears, its inconvenient, embarrassing needs and its beautiful heart with such a staggering potential for love and kindness -- which all of us share -- that makes me a part of the human family, and that's true whether I feel it in any particular moment or not -- and the great irony is that often what people (especially alcoholics) have most in common is the belief that they have nothing in common.

*

I can convince myself that all is random chaos -- daily life riven by petty, grinding evils and grave, shocking injustices -- with no evidence of the Divine at all, by constantly looking for where God isn't.

I can remember that at times I have felt a vast Something at work, whether through a feather-light touch on my heart, a gentle inspiration in my thoughts or a powerful, soul-stilling, soul-filling moment of Peace -- and when I stop and breathe and become really honest with myself about those things then no amount of after-the-fact cynicism can erase that truth.  And from there I can retire from collecting jaded, pathetic "Ah Ha!" moments of disbelief, to remember that while often it is hard, with my tiny human perception, to see God in the world around me, if I choose to I can always feel God in the world within me.

 

A Higher Power as you understand them...

Recovering Jezebel posted this in the comment section recently:

So I've been wanting to ask you this anyway -- everyone keeps telling me, about my crappy Higher Power, "Fire that Higher Power and get a new one!"  But *how* do I do that?  Because I get it that I can't take Step Three with my current God [Mr. SP edit: Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him] with my current God, who is, I'm pretty convinced, just in it to screw me over six ways from Sunday, and then hide behind the proscenium laughing into Their sleeve.  But what's the technique or practice for making up a God I like?  If I just make up a pretty and kind and friendly God, how will I ever be able to believe in Them, since they're patently nothing more than a mere creation of my own little pathetic pea-brain?  So confusing.

Great question, R.J., one I think most people who embrace/try/reject/mock/love/hate the 12 Steps ask in one way or another -- that is, it's nearly impossible to come across the phrase "as you understood Him," and receive AA's blank check when it comes to a concept of God, and not puzzle over how to make this process real.

Let me tell you up front that this essay is probably going to let you down.  That is, I can pretty much guarantee that the feverish metaphysical musings of one relatively crackpot middle-aged alcoholic is unlikely to achieve any spiritual insights greater than those already mused by most of humanity, which has been tilting at this particular windmill since we first crawled out of the cave and began to wonder at the world around us (and within us). 

To state the obvious for a moment, many people subscribe to a particular religious doctrine which supplies a ready-made definition of God -- you may not like it, but at least it's there, clearly defined, complete with rules and conditions, do's and don'ts.  Against this specific picture, AA's carte blanche is baffling to many.

Though I've walked this road myself, and I sincerely want to help, it may be that not all of my experience in this will work for you -- I offer it freely, though, and remind you that the one sure-fire way to have an open mind is the word "maybe."  Maybe something here is right, and will work for you if you try it. 

("Whatcha doin'?"  "Building my Higher Power."  "Really?"  "Yeah."  "Wow!  Well, ummm, be sure and lift with your legs.  I can't even begin to imagine what a spiritual hernia would look like.")

Doing this is, of course, deeply sacrilegious to some people in the world, and in keeping with AA's general spirit of "no controversy" I apologize if anything I write here offends anyone.  To borrow one of my favorite lines from the Big Book, a discussion like this "... immediately precipitates us into a seething cauldron of debate."  (It's so dramatic and a little poetic - I just love it).  But that is not my intent -- this is just a recollection of what has helped me excavate a lot of tired old ideas about God (which I didn't even know I had and ran deeper than I realized), and what I did to begin to embrace new ideas which have brought me much peace and guidance, and sometimes a feeling of blissful connection with a power greater than myself, over the years.

First, though, a story about my dead cat.

(And let me apologize for this, too, as we come perilously close to too too twee when we bring pets into writings about God and such.)

Baxter was a dog-cat, and I had him for many years.  A dog-cat is a cat that comes when you call, let's you rub their tummy without incident, is friendly to strangers who come over, might even play fetch, etc. etc.  (Words cannot begin to describe the disdain Evil Old Cat had for Baxter while he was alive.)  Sitting and reading one time, I watched Baxter engage with a dribble of water from the bathtub faucet.  It occurred to me then, watching him, that he could experience that water with his cat senses in a way I could not -- that is, he had a particular way of understanding the water.  But then I thought about how I understood the water: How I knew about the fact that it could be liquid, solid or gaseous, how it was comprised of two hydrogen molecules and one molecule of oxygen, that it came into my home via a system of pipes handed down from the ancient Roman aqueducts ... etc., etc., etc.   Baxter had an understanding of the water, but his brainpan just wasn't big enough to grasp 1/1000th of what there was to know about it.

I keep Baxter and the water in mind whenever I try to wrap my mind around the Divine.  While I may have a particular way of understanding it, my brainpan just isn't big enough to grasp more than the most limited conceptualization -- at best I will only come to an understanding so finite as to be almost a distortion of the Ultimate Truth.

So relax -- we're never going to really get it -- the best we can do is find some crude analogies which open our hearts to a new understanding  of spiritual principles and maybe clear away some old ideas planted by lots of other people and things (the religion of our childhood, books, movies, TV shows, friends and enemies, billboards and greeting cards) which maybe don't apply to us at all (regardless of how much conviction those other people may have about their beliefs for themselves).

Now, for me, if I want new ideas, then I need new words and images.  I need a new language to describe the thing I've been thinking about -- especially when it comes to God.  I've written before (here and here) about Daniel Ladinsky's translations of (mostly) eastern poems about God, found in the book "Love Poems from God" (which, when you're frightened and seeking spiritual solace is a title which you embrace eagerly, but when you're feeling cool and on your game is the kind of thing you roll your eyes at). I am not saying this book alone will help you re-define your understanding of God -- I'm saying that it helped me.  It might not speak to you -- the bigger point here is that if you want to find new ways of thinking about God go to new sources and see what resonates for you.  That's all.

But since I got my copy of that book down, let me share two things from it which have always stayed with me.

The first is from Meister Eckhart, a monk who lived around the 12th and 13th Centuries.  It is a small thing, and it comes back to me often:

It is a lie -- any talk of God that does not comfort you.

That's it.  A small thing.  A small thing which rocked my world one day.

And then this, from Hafiz, the Persian poet who lived in the 14th Century, entitled "Two Giant Fat People":

God

and I have become

like two giant fat people living

in a tiny

boat.

We

keep bumping into

each other

and

laughing.

What a jolly, poetic, ridiculous image!  What a wise metaphor to illustrate, when I have eyes to see it, all the tiny moments in my day when I feel some Divine Hand guiding me.  To think of the moments when I "bump into God" with silliness and joy -- to think of God feeling silliness and joy -- that's the way I needed to start thinking about my Higher Power.

Also, something which sounds twee (there's that word again) but was very helpful to me for a while, is to stop giving God a penis.  I cannot escape the influence of the culture in which I have lived my whole life.  And this culture, Western culture, has a particular set of qualities which it values as masculine, and a particular set of qualities it thinks of as feminine.  Without getting into a debate about gender dynamics or cultural norms, I think it would be fair to say that if you listed a bunch of characteristics on a page, most Westerners would be in agreement over certain ones being masculine or feminine.  I'm not suggesting that, when people in a meeting say the Lord's Prayer, you make a big deal out of saying "Our MOTHER who art in Heaven..."  For me, though, thinking about God in the feminine was a good way to begin to think of a loving God, as opposed to a more judgmental one.  (Today I do not ascribe a particular gender to God at all, but you can mostly blame the Hubble Telescope for that -- after looking at those gorgeous pictures of the universe and beyond, the idea that Whatever made all that has a particular gender seemed, for me, quite ludicrous.)  But for the umpteenth time I want to stress that I do not think you should or should not believe what I believe.  I'm just saying that, silly as it sounds (and I know it does indeed sound very, very silly), looking at how I felt about male vs. female archetypes helped me begin to deconstruct some of my fears and negative ideas about God.

 

A few more thoughts and a concrete suggestion or two.

R.J., you wrote, "...If I just make up a pretty and kind and friendly God, how will I ever be able to believe in Them, since they're patently nothing more than a mere creation of my own brain..."

With respect I submit to you that you are already doing that.  You've made up a mean and unjust God who's out to get you -- but that is merely a creation of your own brain.  Don't tell me it's from this Sacred Text or that Learned Elder.  It's your brain, you're the one thinking it and dwelling on it.  The tough question to ask yourself (and I'm afraid it begs another even tougher one in a moment) is this:

Do you always assume that the negative voice is inherently more true than the positive one?  That is a mistake many people make.  Because I am sure that, in AA, you have met people who have suggested a definition of God which is quite, as you say, "pretty and kind and friendly."  But since they're describing a "nice" God you don't believe them, but when someone/something else describes a "mean" God you do believe them?  Believing the negative voice is inherently more true than the positive one, is, I assure you, merely a trick of perception.  The existence of the half of the glass which is empty does not negate the truth of the half that is full.  They are equally real.  It is only our mind which dismisses one and values the other.

And I am sorry, it is not my intent to imply anything nor am I trying to be snarky or offend, but that question does beg this one as well, offered only for your consideration, feel free to dismiss it as I do not know you personally, so I could be way off base: 

Is investing in the belief that God is out to get you ("...screw me over six ways from Sunday...") a device to perpetuate some kind of victim role, cosmically speaking?

Because another way in which I have been able to redefine "God as I understand God" was to pull the camera back somewhat, and not evaluate each individual twist of Fate as a Good thing or a Bad thing per se, but try and take a longer view.  This is a little hokey, but is a good illustration of what I mean.  Yes, sometimes bad things happen -- but sometimes things happen and I decide they are bad, which can feed the victim-loop in my head.

Now, if you're really serious about this trying to "fire" your old Higher Power and begin to find a new one, here is what you do:

Get a notebook, a highlighter, a pen and your Big Book.

Read Chapter 4, "We Agnostics," and after each paragraph, write in the notebook what you think the book was saying, and then what you think and how you feel about what the book was saying.  Then use the highlighter to mark all of the things which particularly strike you -- either that you especially like or you especially hate (cause I learn from both).  Don't let this suggestion overwhelm you -- it doesn't have to be this dreadful, arduous homework assignment.  Try a page a day.  There are 14, actually (if you count not the leaves in the book but each side of text).  If you do that, and sincerely ask God to open your eyes and your mind, in two weeks you will have a beginning -- maybe a very strong beginning -- on a path towards a Higher Power of your understanding which is indeed one you can come to trust and even feel a deep and powerful love from.

Sorry, one last thing:

Remember, if, by the end of the night, you don't drink, or use, or kill yourself, YOU WIN.  There is no "wrong" way to do any of this spiritual pursuit -- you aren't in a contest, you aren't in a race, your path and your process need not satisfy anyone else's measure or criteria.  For each 24 hours you just don't pick up the first drink, and if you do that and keep going to meetings the rest of this stuff will absolutely work itself out.

R.J., I hope some of this was helpful, and as always, thank you for reading and your wonderful comments.

Cheers!

Love,

Mr. SponsorPants

... ,Alfie?

It was pretty easy to find the cafeteria, actually.  It was a small private hospital, well laid out and well maintained.  Plenty of signage, even if the woman at the information desk -- she looked like a volunteer, complete with courtesy-clerk smile and pastel cardigan draped over her shoulders -- hadn't been kind enough to direct me towards the elevators and point out the signs along the walls.

I wondered if she knew asking for the cafeteria meant I was going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

It was my very first.

At this hour, shortly before seven o'clock at night, the hospital didn't feel very busy.  There was neither hustle nor bustle in any of the halls I walked down, following the signs marked with helpful arrows pointing straight, left or right, next to the word "Cafeteria."  Many corridors were empty, others had but one lone orderly pushing a cart, or a nurse carrying a little tray covered with paper cups.  It was 1986, long before America was a country that thought of itself as under siege, and I don't think I saw one security guard from Entrance to Exit.

I was wearing dress shoes, and mine were the only footsteps I could hear as I navigated the fluorescent and linoleum labyrinth -- click click click click.  Having absolutely no idea what to expect I'd dressed up to go to the meeting.  The clothes, from smart white cap to ridiculous, pale yellow pants (which kind of poofed at the thigh and tapered to fit snugly at the ankle -- think MC Hammer as lion tamer, designed by Chiquita Banana -- hey! 1986, remember?) were all stolen from the store where I worked.  In the mirror at the store I thought the hat made me look sophisticated, but now, walking along -- click click click click -- I felt self conscious and unsure.  Couldn't blame the hat entirely for that -- self conscious and unsure were my default settings then.

I rounded a corner, took one more elevator down, and there was the door to the cafeteria.  It would make for a heartwarming moment in the story (and a tidy bit of foreshadowing) to say that, as I put my hand on the knob, I could hear jolly laughter and the pleasant murmur of fellowship coming through the door; but that sucker was solid, gunmetal gray and fire door thick, with one narrow window above the doorknob, lines of wire in a diamond pattern reinforcing the glass.  People could have been screaming "Oh my God! Zombies! Run! Run!" on the other side of the door for all I could hear.

Turning the knob and walking through that door would be one of the bravest moments of my short and incredibly drunken life up to that point.  Some may read that and doubt, ascribing such an assessment to hyperbole, an obvious bias, or my occasional penchant for colorful phrasing (which is, in itself, a colorful phrase, so count that your moment of zen, if you like).  But this AA story is not about courage -- that's not what it's all about.  When I speak at AA meetings (and I say this often) I am very careful not to take the language of recovery I use to describe how I am today and artificially superimpose it over how I was then.  I don't need recovery terminology to describe how, with my hand on the doorknob, I felt very frightened and completely lost -- like a small child in a dark wood in a tale by the Brothers Grimm.  But I was not a child, as most people would reckon it.  I was 24 years old.  My liver was distended. (My Driver's License read twenty-four but my liver panel said eighty-four.)  I was beginning to have audio hallucinations -- they occurred often enough to frighten me, usually after a good 12 hour stretch of solid drinking -- but infrequently enough (the hallucinations, not the 12 hour stretches of drinking) for me to realize I was starting to hear things.  At that point I hadn't gone to the bathroom normally for months.  When I did, mostly it was blood.  My hands shook and ... I did NOT want to open that door.  I don't even recall a conscious reason why, except for the first time in years I hadn't had a drink in maybe two days, (the migraines didn't start till a day or so later) and I knew I was going to, if I didn't go through that door -- I knew I couldn't drink, I knew I shouldn't drink and yet I could just not fathom not drinking -- or not drinking for much longer.

On the way to the hospital I had passed a 7-11, and it was an honest-to-God, parting-of-the-Red-Seas-miracle that I hadn't pulled in and bought some malt liquor, as I had so many, many nights there before.  I even lifted my foot off the accelerator for a moment, slowing down and thinking maybe I would go in and get some cigarettes -- and in only the haziest way did I suspect that this was a very bad idea.  My foot drifted back down to the gas pedal, and the moment passed.  Some miracles are tiny moments:  The deciding not to stop, the turning of a corner rather than going straight, choosing aisle 7 instead of aisle 8 -- tiny moments, but no less powerful, lifesaving or Divine for their quick tick of the clock.  But this AA story is not about miracles.  That's not what it's all about.

I turned the knob and went in.  The main area of the cafeteria was empty save for a few folks in scrubs.  The meeting was held in the area to the left, marked "Smoking."  Yes, the meeting was held in the Smoking Section of the Hospital Cafeteria.  Talk about a different era -- if the years didn't weigh on me much before, the certainly do a bit more after typing that sentence.  ("Mr. SponsorPants?  Sure, I know him.  He got sober sometime during the Pliocene Era, right?  I heard they used stone arrowheads for Welcome Chips, and the service commitments were tending the fire and standing at the mouth of the cave to greet newcomers.")  But this AA story is not about how long ago I went to my first AA meeting, or how long I've been sober.  That's not what it's all about -- and dear God, if it ever is, then I'm in a lot of trouble.  (It'll be "Abandon Blog!  Head for the lifeboats he's going down!").

Maybe 25 people.  Probably two-thirds men, one-third women.  People my age and people with gray hair.  Some smiles, some "Welcomes."   Someone gestured to an empty seat next to them and I sat, my face frozen in Polite Smile Number 5.  We were seated in a circle around a bunch of tables that had been shoved together in the center of the room.  Big Books (and ashtrays!) were spaced evenly around the table, with enough for most people to have their own, or comfortably share with a neighbor.

I sat there, and all I could think was, "I'm the only one wearing a hat!  No one else is wearing a hat!  Maybe I should take my hat off!  I can't take my hat off, then I'll have hat hair!"  (I was young.  I was so terrified I didn't even know how terrified I was.  I was detoxing.  Be kind.)  I remember very clearly deciding not to help myself to a cup of coffee because I knew my hands would shake too much when I held the cup -- or tried to hold it, I guess.  It was a book study (hence the Big Books).  I had no idea what that meant.  People were nice and all, but I had carefully timed it so that I walked in just before the meeting started, so if it had even occurred to me to ask what a book study was I didn't have the chance.

The meeting was up to Chapter 2, 'There is a Solution.'  I was zoning in and out, careful to look like I was listening, trying not to make eye contact, obsessing about my stupid hat, waiting for someone to light up a cigarette so I could too.  They were in the part of the book which describes how the main problem of the alcoholic is in the mind, rather than the body, and talking about what an alcoholic might say when you ask him "... why he started on that last bender..." 

I will never forget this:

It was a woman named Muriel reading at that point.  She had salt-and-pepper hair, and a kind face, I thought.  No makeup, but she had smiled at me when I sat down and it made her look very pretty.  She read:

"Once in a while he may tell the truth.  And the truth, strange to say, is usually that he has no more idea why he took that first drink than you have." 

I imagine that all the air left my lungs in a whoosh, because it felt as though an invisible spear had just hurtled through the center of my chest.  The reading went on.

"Some drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied part of the time.  But in their hearts they really do not know why they do it.  Once this malady has a real hold they are a baffled lot.  There is the obsession that somehow, someday they will beat the game.  But they often suspect they are down for the count."

"That.  Is.  Me."  The thought rang in my head like a bell.

(I suppose for the less poetic readers I'm willing to acknowledge that the ringing could have been the onset of another audio hallucination.  I was pretty fried.)

But for the first time since I had started drinking alcoholically (which was pretty much from the first time I picked up a drink) I heard something which spoke to what it felt like at my very core -- and before that very moment, I couldn't even have described this truth.  I heard and identified with something on a deep level that all the loving, tearful speeches from family, the disgusted confrontations with friends, the angry notes from roommates, the shocked comments from neighbors, the grim speeches from employers, had never been able to reach before. 

As the meeting went on I heard people, who suddenly seemed like me, talking with real candor about thoughts and feelings like mine, which, until they shared it, I hadn't even been able to identify, let alone put a name to and say out loud.  I heard people describe wanting to drink like I wanted to drink, and drinking like I drank.  I head them share about what they did not to drink (and not to go crazy from wanting to), and how the wanting left -- or was leaving -- and about what they had found in AA.  They all spoke for themselves and about themselves.  No one lectured, or pointed a finger, or made a sales pitch.  I remember marveling at how they seemed calm and kind and wise.   

After the meeting a few people spoke with me.  (Somehow they could tell I was new!  Imagine!)  I don't know what they said, but I remember how I felt -- it flirts with melodrama to put it this way, but it seemed like I hadn't felt it in a really long time:  Hope.  Not the "Gosh! Things are gonna be great now!" Heidi-on-the-mountain-with-a-goat sunny zippy kind of hope.

The kind that is just a little speck of light in a dark so pitch that you might not even have realized how far and how deep and how black it had become.

And believe me, when it's black like that, a speck is a beacon.

Lots of people up to that point had wanted to help me.  On a deep level I knew I needed help -- though I wasn't sure what it might be or how I might find it.  I only came to the damn meeting because my family had done their half-assed version of an intervention (I call it half-assed because I knew, in the predatory, shark-like way which all alcoholics have, that there was still some rope left.  Inside me was love for them, and deep, deep shame, but also, inside me was the shark.)  Thus with motives mixed, as much to keep working the rope as to try to get a help I couldn't even picture, I went to the AA meeting. 

And what I found in that Alcoholics Anonymous meeting is what AA is at its very heart.

And that's what this AA story is all about.

The great discovery made between a failed stockbroker and a washed up surgeon that when one alcoholic, without any motive but to help, shares their own experience, strength and hope with another, that the listener might hear something in a way they've never heard before, and the drunk sharing is themselves profoundly helped and healed.

For free, without being subjected to anyone else's criteria or having to make a reservation, I walked into an AA meeting and that is what I found.  No rules, no hoops, no deposit, no proof of citizenship or insurance required.  No one cared if I was rich or poor, Republican or Democrat, owner or renter, Catholic or Protestant, Jewish or Muslim,  gay or straight, vegetarian or carnivore.  All they cared about was helping me with my drinking problem, if I wanted their help.  They didn't even care about my ridiculous pale yellow lion tamer pants.  (1986!  1986!  Okay?  Jeeze.) 

All the sturm und drang about statistics and labels and philosophies and agendas really, ultimately doesn't matter when you're a drunk hanging on by a thread, about 12 hours from your last drink and potentially five minutes from your next.  In that moment all the abstracts are just that:  Abstracts.

Populated by often deeply flawed, well intentioned people, working through their own dysfunctions and issues even as they try to carry AA's message of recovery to each other and to newcomers, every AA meeting is the opportunity for someone to experience what happened to me all those years ago.

The 12 Traditions anchor the whole dizzy, dyspeptic mess from aligning itself with causes or issues or movements or corporate sponsors.  What other people or organizations outside of AA do with what AA offers strangely, ultimately doesn't matter either when you're that desperate drunk, needing some help -- any help -- walking through the door of the meeting.

The night I walked into an AA meeting I was a hair's breadth from drinking again, and young as I was, the way I drank I was going to wind up back in that hospital's basement ... but down the hall and in a room with much better air conditioning.  (Ironically probably no smoking section in there.)

What's it all about? 

It's about what happens in an AA meeting which can save a life.

I know, and I believe in it, because what happened in that first meeting I went to saved mine. 

Giblet and Dumpling consider Cargo Cults and Negative Consciousness. A Play in 47 Lines.

As the curtain rises, Giblet sits at the kitchen table downstage left, looking morose and drinking a cup of coffee.  After a few moments Dumpling enters, upstage right, and crosses to the counter, where a coffee maker sits, with several mugs on a sideboard.  Dumpling grabs a mug, fills it with coffee and stands, considering Giblet for a few moments before crossing downstage and joining them at the table.

DUMPLING:  What are you doing?

GIBLET (sarcastic and exasperated): What does it look like I'm doing?  I'm sitting here drinking a cup of coffee.

DUMPLING:  Actually, it looks like you're sitting, drinking a cup of coffee and thinking angry thoughts.  And scowling.  You're a great scowler, you know.

GIBLET:  Whatever.

DUMPLING:  What are you thinking about?

GIBLET:  Some guy at the meeting last week shared something that I can't get out of my head and ... it's really messing with me.

DUMPLING:  What did your sponsor say?  Oh, that's right, you don't call your sponsor.

GIBLET:  That's what's great about you, I don't really need to work my program, since you're always so ready to step in and work it for me.

DUMPLING:  That is an infantile evasion to an astute observation -- my remarking that you don't call your sponsor is not very different from saying you don't take your insulin, or you don't take your vitamins, or whatever.

GIBLET:  Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that.

DUMPLING:  Wow, you are really a piece of work today.  So what is it that this guy shared which has your snark turned up to eleven?

GIBLET:  He was talking about having a hard time with his faith -- faith in God, faith in AA, recovery, his ability to "get" it -- and he compared the whole thing to a Cargo Cult, and the comparison is so apt it's kind of freaking me out.

DUMPLING:  How apt is it?  Remind me again what a Cargo Cult is, and most especially what it might have to do with a crisis of faith.

Giblet rises from the table while speaking, and goes to the counter, grabbing the coffee pot and returning, pouring more coffee into each mug.

GIBLET:  Well, he told the story of the Cargo Cults -- it's part history and part fable, so don't get worked up about how accurate the history bits are -- it's the larger point that's working me.  Okay, so during World War II the Allies' planes couldn't carry enough fuel to make it all the way across the Pacific Theater, so the military selected small islands along the way to build posts with fuel and supplies and such.  Some of these islands were actually inhabited, and so basically one day, as far as the natives were concerned, this big silver bird comes down from the sky, and out of its belly comes men, with materials and things, and the men build a long flat road and hang lights, which then makes for other, even bigger silver birds to land, and from those issued all sorts of things -- not just men and supplies, but things that the natives had never seen before.  Matches, chocolate, flashlights, cameras ...

DUMPLING:  Okay, sorry to interrupt, but my God, could this fable be any more condescending to indigenous peoples?  It's the typical Western arrogance manifest destiny thing which ...

GIBLET:  You are everything I hate about highly educated people, did you know that?

DUMPLING:  And yet you keep sleeping with me.

GIBLET:  Congratulations, you are part of my cycle of dysfunctional relationships.  Do you want to hear what's bothering me, or do you want to lecture me about western culture and crap like that?

DUMPLING:  Sorry, sorry -- go on.

GIBLET:  Okay, so the natives, they have no understanding of the war, or the world outside of their little island.  They're just grooving on all the stuff that is coming along with the men who come out of the big silver birds.

DUMPLING:  Chocolate and nylons.

GIBLET:  Will you stop?

DUMPLING:  Sorry, I really do want to help.  Please, go on.

GIBLET:  So the war ends, but that's all an abstract to the natives -- yet with the war over the military eventually closes the base and flies away.  No more silver birds with stuff coming out of them.  So the natives sit down, and with their best thinking try to figure out how to get the big silver birds to come back to the island so they can get the stuff again.  So they think about it, and they think about it, and they hit on a perfect solution:  Build another long road for the big silver birds to land on.  After all, that's what happened before, right?  So they tear down some trees and flatten a long stretch of land and line it with torches and congratulate themselves on their good thinking and their hard work and they sit down and wait.  But of course no planes come, because although they mimicked what it took for planes to land on the island before, they were completely ignorant of what was really going on. From their limited view they took the right action to get the result, but in the big picture they couldn't have been more off the mark.

DUMPLING:  Okay, wow, and this guy said all this in his share?  Where does the crisis of faith come in, and what about all that has gotten your knickers in a twist?

GIBLET:  What if we in recovery are like the natives on the island -- what if anyone seeking a conscious contact with a Higher Power in general is like that?  We have our little rituals and our writing and we pray and we this and that, but what if we're just performing a dumb show, and are as empty and misguided as those natives and will get an equally empty and dismal result.  What if it's all bullshit stage business completely divorced from a real ... well, a real anything?

DUMPLING:  You certainly like to torture yourself.  All this is a just a ridiculously complicated way to simply ask "What if there is no God?" or "What if AA is bs?"  Not to mention, there is so much needless drama, (conveniently ignoring the results we get from AA, by the way) with that line of questioning anyway.  And that interpretation of the story.  Personally, I can see a whole different point to your Cargo Cult fable.

GIBLET:  Not everyone gets results from AA you know.

DUMPLING:  I have.  And you have, when you're not throwing yourself around the kitchen, wringing your hands and wondering when it will stop working or if it's all pointless.  Not everyone treating their cancer gets results from chemotherapy, either.  Does that mean that no one should use chemotherapy?  It's a simple Program, sure, but addiction is not a simple problem -- so to reduce it to such a simplistic level is doing yourself, and your program ... and AA ... a disservice.  Because it's such a reduction that it becomes a distortion.

GIBLET:  Okay, maybe ... but the Cargo Cult story is still a good analogy for a group of people doing an empty ritual to no avail.  They built a landing strip, but they didn't get what they wanted.

DUMPLING:  Ah, but what did they get?

GIBLET:  What are you talking about, they didn't get anything, that's the point.

DUMPLING:  No, they didn't get airplanes with chocolate and trinkets, but that's not to say they didn't get anything -- they just didn't get the specific result they thought they wanted.

GIBLET:  Right -- they didn't get what they set out to get.

DUMPLING:  But that's not the same as them not getting anything.

GIBLET:  If you are about to say they didn't get what they wanted but maybe they got what they needed I am going to throw up right here and now.

DUMPLING:  Well go stand over the sink, because that IS what I'm saying.  Your little fable ends too soon.  It needs a Second Act, a Chapter Two, a ... a ... an epilogue!

GIBLET:  And what would that be?

DUMPLING:  Well, did they get airplanes full of crap?  No.  But in working towards that, maybe they learned other things, got other things.

GIBLET:  I'm going to be sorry I asked, but ... what other things?

DUMPLING (shrugs):  A greater sense of community.  A new understanding of engineering principles.  An insight that their leadership was screwed up -- the specific what-they-got isn't the point -- the point is that just because they didn't get what they set out to find doesn't mean they didn't get great stuff -- stuff that was ultimately of much greater value to them than chocolate bars and trinkets.  Thus, it doesn't even matter if there's something at the other end, it's the doing that's worthwhile anyway.

GIBLET:  I thought you said there was nothing on earth worth more than good chocolate.

DUMPLING:  Shut up -- I'm making a great point.

GIBLET:  Yeah, if you live in the Pollyanna Universe.

Dumpling slams their coffee mug down on the table and Giblet jumps.

DUMPLING:  No.  No, no no no NO.  I hate that and I reject that.  Just because something is a positive or uplifting interpretation doesn't make it any less valid or possible or important or substantive than your piss-all-over-everything negativity.

GIBLET:  I'm not negative.  I'm realistic.

DUMPLING (suddenly furious):  My God!  Have you met you?  You are nothing BUT negative!  You love to be negative!  It's bullshit, is what it is, because you don't have the balls to feel hope and embrace optimism and look for the sunlight!  It's easier and safer to just keep dragging around, acting cool and saying everything is crap -- then you never have to risk disappointment or rise to a challenge or actually do anything!  It's much easier and more fun to ponce around the house talking about how life sucks, AA sucks, God's a fantasy -- and every time I say anything positive you just make fun of it!  You know what, I don't need that!  Being negative is easy, any child can stomp on a sandcastle.  You know what's hard?  Building the sandcastle!  Keeping faith, even if you think it's silly or stupid or... or ... Pollyanna.  What's so stupid about looking for the good, anyway?  What's so unrealistic about that?  It's such a cheap trick, equating the negative with realism.  But you know what's really hard?  Constantly listening to your faux sophisticated cynicism...

Dumpling stops abruptly, suddenly hearing what they've said, realizing they've gone too far, and covers their face with their hands.  Giblet opens their mouth to respond, and then closes it.  Slowly Giblet rises from the table and stands, looking down at Dumpling.  Dumpling lowers their hands from their face, looks up at Giblet and seems about to say something.  With a roar Giblet whirls and throws their mug against the wall, where it shatters with a crash.

Blackout.

Curtain.

I don't have to "know" for it to work.

I went for one of my favorite walks.

It takes me past a long row of tall evergreens, planted next to the sidewalk, which slowly curves, following the road, so the trees progress in a graceful arc.

The sidewalk, and thus the trees, are set back some from the road, which carries little traffic, so while it's hardly a walk in the woods, it feels like I get my green fix.  I used to walk this route home from work five days a week, and it was often my favorite part of the day (or evening, depending on the shift).  "Hello, Ladies" I said then -- and again today --  when I pass these trees -- they remind me of Grande Dames -- it is a cliche to use the word "stately" to describe them, but it is too apt not to say it anyway.

Today, as I usually do on this walk, I brushed my hand along some of the needles and then raised my palm to my nose and took a good strong hit of the sap scent.  Mainlining evergreen.  I don't care where you're from or what your associations, there's something about the way that smell hits your olfactory nerve that shouts "Tree!  Alive! Tree!" all the way down to your DNA.

It has been my habit to make this bit of path a walking meditation as well.  The pine smell makes it easy -- it's like a key which unlocks a different way of thinking for a little bit.  Not about God, specifically, but about the connectedness of the natural world.  I think of the trees and then with my eye follow their branches all the way up, consider the sunlight as it comes through the needles, how the light dances a bit more, a hundred tiny peek-a-boos, as the needles move in the breeze -- it's sharper than the mellow green glow you get from other, regular leaves filtering the sun.  Seems fitting, really.

I imagine the trees drinking in the sunlight, the photosynthesis, the release of oxygen, the roots going down into the earth and drinking water from the soil ... typing it out here makes it sound like either a very bad rough draft by Rod McKuen or the intro to some 7th grader's science presentation, but walking, thinking, smelling ... it has a way of shifting my perspective -- pulling the camera up and back for the big long shot from above.

Before the walk today I came across a great article in "New Scientist."  You can read it yourself here, if you like, (it's not very long).  It talks about how people tend to ascribe their own bias to whatever their idea of God is.  (I made myself laugh, thinking about a magazine called "New Scientist" as if it was in response to a publication called "Traditional Scientist" or "Old Scientist" -- and then I started imagining what kind of articles "Old Scientist" would have listed on it's cover:  "Gadget Guide:  Six New Must-Have Sextants!" and "Flint is the new Tinder!" or "Bathysphere Babe: Dr. Millicent Farnsworth - Cutting edge research in the controversial new field of submersibles!  Don't ask her if she's going down!" I think these things and then I make myself laugh and then I realize I am laughing to myself out loud, and might have also said the last couple of things I was thinking out loud... and then I just hope anyone who sees me thinks I have a Bluetooth.)

The book "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's Big Book) talks about how we can pay for the presumption of assuming we know what God is thinking in all sorts of foolish ways (a rough quote, but the spirit is intact) and counsels us to make sure we include other people's input in our considerations before we decide we know what God is "telling us" to do.  The real trick might be to make sure I'm not just asking people who all think the same way I do -- then we'll all just have an agreement that our Higher Power agrees with us...

The article also mentions that the part of your brain which lights up when you talk to or about a friend is the same part of your brain that lights up when you talk to God.  I like that.

None of the science or brain research troubles me.  When it comes to the Big Question (is there or isn't there) I've let all the doubts in and let them chase me around the room.  I went toe to toe with the fascinating, witty and insightful reasoning of Julia Sweeney's "Letting Go of God" in which Ms. Sweeney -- who had been a lifelong Catholic, and wrote (very funnily -- which is a word but never sounds like it ought to be) about her brother's terminal illness and how her faith sustained her through his passing in "God Said Ha!" -- describes how she no longer believes in God.  She writes a wise and compassionate goodbye to her faith in that piece.  Frankly, I loved it, and the way it made me question.

And I'm okay with all of it.  That, for me, is the beauty and freedom -- and yes, power -- of what Alcoholics Anonymous has given me in the idea that I can make use of spiritual tools -- first to address my drinking and then to help me live -- via a Higher Power as I understand said Higher Power.

That freedom, and hearing people share in meetings about finding their old conceptions no longer suited them and they needed to get a "bigger" God, leaves me plenty of room to consider that what I believe today, while helpful, may not be right tomorrow.  It leaves me with the humility to say, "I don't know everything" which can lead to the wonderful peace of "Oh, I'm never going to know everything!"  And when my human foibles step in to taint the process, and I realize "Oh, that's not a spiritual connection, that's my ego talking on that one bit" I can understand that this does not mean I have to lose my entire concept or connection.  The open mindedness and its attendant humility allows me to chuck the bits that aren't a fit anymore, but not chuck the whole thing because of it.

In embracing that sometimes I may need to change how I think about God, AA reminds me to leave room to remain always open minded on all things spiritual.

Then, ultimately, it doesn't matter which part of my brain lights up when I talk to God, or if humanity as a whole often makes the same mistakes in whatever our belief systems are.

It doesn't matter because I am seeking -- it's a process -- and all of my "oops!" and "I don't know's" and doubts and conclusions and brainstorms and ideas about God are fine for me at each point along the road, because it works for me at that point, but the "as you understand" part keeps me in check from thinking that just because my conception works for me today then that must mean I've got it, I'm finished and I'm right! -- and ipso facto that means others are wrong.  "As I understand" also leaves me room to allow others their understanding -- or lack of.

I walk, I pray, I reflect, my perception changes and I have relief and peace --  the result is my proof for today -- and I will keep seeking and I will remain open minded.

Whatever science discovers is wonderful new information -- sometimes about how humanity approaches religion, which often has nothing to do with my own personal spirituality -- but I can use that information to guard against my ego secretly pulling the strings in my seeking, and to reach for compassion (through understanding) when the belief systems of others seem close minded and a little scary.  Religion has not always treated gently the people who arrive new to AA, and it can leave wounds which make any talk of spirituality offputting -- maybe the more I understand about religion and the brain, the better I can open my heart to people who have a negative association between God and prayer and some organized religions.   

Regardless, science may be right about some things, I may be right about others ... it is the open mind, the "I don't know" which frees me to keep seeking, to consider without threat or fear all new ideas as they come along, and while doing so keep my spiritual equilibrium -- and thus my sobriety -- since I don't have to "know" for it all to work.

 

I practically floated off the bus.

I smelled wet people.

I was working in Las Vegas at the annual Consumer Electronics show.  I, and many other attendees, had been waiting for the bus hired by the show to run the big circle from the convention center to most of the hotels close by.  That particular year some freak of desert winter weather brought occasional showers through the area, and one of those occasions coincided with sixty or so of us standing outside, waiting to get back to our hotels.  In short order the lot of us had been pretty thoroughly soaked.

The bus pulled up and we all piled on.  Unfortunately it had been designed to carry maybe 20 people fewer than our little mob, but the rain was such that the driver didn't make anyone wait for the next bus.

Crammed together, sweaty and tired from the convention -- and now wet -- this was not a scene which would make it into any vacation promotional material from the Las Vegas tourism board.

Work travel is not like a vacation, even in a city renowned for it's ability to entertain (or distract, depending on your point of view) thus I was already not having a good time -- in fact the city had depressed me.

I was lucky enough to have a seat on the bench that ran lengthwise along the side of the bus, in the front section behind the driver, which meant I was squished by my fellow bench sitters on either side and surrounded by people standing -- more like looming -- above us, gamely trying to keep their balance by holding onto rails and handles as the bus crawled through the rain.  Picture the seating configuration and the crowded conditions and you get that I was cheek to cheek with total strangers -- but different cheeks -- and not in a good way.

At that time in my sobriety I was always asking God "why?"  Sometimes it was in a sincere attempt to understand something, and other times it was little more than a whine, but in one form or another I was always mentally dashing off a note to my Higher Power:  "Dear HP, Why is X happening/not happening to me.  Please respond asap.  Thanks!  xo, Mr. SP"  While God has spoken to me directly on occasion, S/He (I'm keeping an open mind) has never been in the business of giving me a "because."

With no Divine Because forthcoming for my bus ride, and the smell of wet people becoming increasingly pungent, I started to get... self pitying.  Resentful.  Discontent.  I had a good job and I was traveling on someone else's nickel, and while the bus was crowded and uncomfortable it was hardly inhumane conditions -- yet my emotional maturity then (and it has only marginally improved over the years, on some spiritually unfit days, anyway) was such that a bit of rough going could dirty my diaper pretty quick.

At this point in my sobriety I had moved on from the sarcastic sponsor to the beautiful sponsor, and she had been talking to me a lot about meditation.  Naturally I had many books on meditation on my bookshelf, purchased specifically so that people who came to my home could see from their presence in my library that I was a very spiritual fellow.  I hadn't read any of them, of course, but I could sound like I had.  I had never really tried to meditate, figuring that before I could even begin I would need the right robe, a dozen organic scented candles made by blind monks from virgin beeswax, probably a prayer rug and possibly a toe ring.  I always have lots of school supplies, I just never go to class.

The beautiful sponsor told me that I needed to develop a meditation practice that I could "carry in my pocket."  That I could do in just about any situation.  She suggested that as a start in my meditation practice I try counting my breaths, and thinking only of the count and trying to deeply feel each breath.

Sitting in the human humidor I thought back on her words, and almost defiantly said to myself, "Fine. Fine!  I'll try this stupid meditation thing.  Fine!"

God's honest truth:  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and said in my mind, "100."  Then I took another deep breath, and on the inhale said (in my mind) "ninety-" and on the exhale "-nine."

And then I lost count.

No, really.

It wasn't that I had forgotten that 98 followed 99 in my countdown, it was just that some other random thought popped up, and knocked my counting out of my head for a moment.  So I started over.  100, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, POP random thought, lose focus.  I realized if I started over after every POP I would never make it out of the nineties, so, remembering some advice I'd heard about meditation somewhere along the line, I decided to just pick up wherever I left off, whenever I got interrupted -- or rather, interrupted myself.

My breathing slowed and got more even.  I sat still but relaxed.  I became more conscious of my breathing, my heartbeat, my self, and less conscious of the army of fannies hemming me in.  I became conscious of my conscious.

Honest to God, I reached 3,2,1 just as the bus pulled up in front of my hotel.  The doors opened and I practically floated off the bus.

The 11th Step of Alcoholics Anonymous suggests prayer and mediation, and in the literature it describes that "prayer, meditation and self examination provide an unshakable foundation for living."  Most people see meditation as a good thing, but they also see it as complicated, or requiring some special accessories and uncomfortable poses, or that it will be boring or like homework.

And by "most people" I mean me.  That was how I always thought of meditation before I had that experience on the bus.  Now of course I have a wealth of experience to the contrary.

From that brief and powerful lesson I have learned how to center myself in some very strange situations, and my spiritual life has been greatly enlarged.

(Which, going back to my whiney "why?" to God at the time, was quite probably the "because," I was asking for.)

Try it.

Metaphorically speaking, the evolution of my relationship with a Higher Power.

Metaphorically, the evolution of my relationship with God can be expressed like this:

I cried out "God! I'm starving!"

And a banquet appeared.

Later I cried out "God, I'm starving!"

And the food to prepare a banquet appeared.

Still later I cried out "God, I'm starving!"
And God said, "So?  You know where the supermarket is."

Alcoholics Anonymous suggests that, to bypass all the religious rhetoric and spiritual dogma many of us have been exposed to in our lives (and which generally we used as an excuse to justify resentment and willful behavior rather than looking for the deeper truths beneath) we create our own idea of what God is like  -- an idea of God that "works" for us so that we can then develop a faith that works for us.

But regardless of how deeply your faith begins or becomes, or whatever conception of a Higher Power is eventually meaningful to you, it seems that certain spiritual laws are always in place, (even though, try as we might, we never fully grasp them in their entirety).

And when it comes to alcoholics in recovery, chief among them seems to be:

God will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, not what we will not do for ourselves.

Or, as a smart friend of mine puts it, perhaps a bit more succinctly than I: "God don't do dishes."

illuminating what you might secretly believe

To illuminate what you might secretly believe about your Higher Power, work backwards from how you feel (and what you fear) about what God's will is for you.

If you view "God's will" with trepidation, or suspicion, or alarm, if you're afraid that God's will might be hard, or boring, or painful, or unrewarding, then I believe the trick is not to work on letting go of the fear -- the trick is to change your belief about what God is; to re-examine how you understand God.

There can be a pretty vast difference between what I understand (that is, what I think I know), what I hope and what I believe.  And for me, before I can actually come to believe something (about God) I have to pull my deep down doubts up into the light and give them their day in court.

For years I had beliefs about God and the way the universe worked that I didn't even know I had.  I talked a great game about a loving Higher Power, but I was just parroting what others said -- I was actually disconnected from what I truly believed.  It was almost as if what I wanted to believe distracted me from what I actually believed.

The freedom that AA's philosophy offers, the "choose your own conception of a Higher Power" allowed me to stay, but it also baffled me for a while.  And in the vacuum of no particular dogma, my old ideas, the old fears and almost superstitious belief system I had about how the universe works, began to seep into the foundation of the new faith I was trying to build.

I was so busy working on the new super structure of a "God as I understood God" that  I didn't even notice the plumbing problem I was having under the foundation.

I've written here before about the stunning insight I had once, while praying the 3rd Step Prayer (which, for the new kids, is a beautiful request to God to "build with me and do with me as You will), that half way through the prayer I looked like I was bracing for a blow.

In a kind of wild, third person perspective I saw myself praying in that moment, and my body language betrayed a buried belief I didn't even know I had:  That God's will was going to hurt.

That was when I learned:  To illuminate what you secretly believe about your Higher Power, work backwards from how you feel (and what you fear) about what God's will is for you.

For me it turns out that I cannot change what I believe, in any substantive way, until I discover and confront what it is I actually believe -- not just focus harder on what I want to believe.  Without doing that, trying to change the nature of my faith is like being very busy decorating the top floors of my house with happy colors while the foundation slowly erodes.

The Scariest Sponsee on Earth: Prologue

1996

I was so, so sad.

I wasn't feeling sorry for myself.  I was sad.

Fortunately I had a wise sponsor (who has since passed but who I still hear, in my head -- or my heart, maybe -- and without who's patience and guidance I would likely not be alive today -- or at the very least not be the man I am today) who was able to understand the difference between sadness and self pity.  At that time he'd already sponsored me for several years.  He'd heard -- and clocked rather ruthlessly -- my self pity when it showed up.  He knew in this case I was not indulging myself.  This was no tantrum.  It was not the voice of King Baby inside me, wailing away over all he hadn't got.  No, this was deeper, and slower, and more dangerous than self pity.

"This too shall pass."  He told me.

"Don't quit before the miracle."  He told me.

I was maybe seven or eight years sober, and it felt like "quitting" was most definitely on the menu, though what form that might take was up for grabs.

"It's almost worth being where you are when you come out the other side.  God didn't get you this far just to drop you on your ass now."  He told me.

We lived in different cities at that time, but spoke on the phone every day.  Sometimes twice a day.

"I don't believe you anymore."  I told him.

"I know," he would say, "but do you trust me?"

I had to think.  "Yeah, I do."

"Okay, that'll have to be enough then."  I look back from today at the patience and kindness he gave me and I am humbled by how generous he was with his time.  With his spirit.

I still went to meetings -- a good amount even.  One doesn't shrug off a habit of give-or-take 8 years standing very easily.  I was even too sad to hate the meetings, though it seemed a pointless exercise to me.

It went on for a while.  My sponsor listened.  He suggested I pray.  I tried, but it too seemed pointless.

Truth:

Finally, late one night -- it's always "late one night" in these kinds of things, isn't it -- lying in my bed, I said to the God I didn't believe in anymore, "I don't believe in you anymore.  But ... help me. Please.  I'll do anything."  And in that moment I meant it.  Sometimes I think that's what makes the difference.  People ask God for help all the time.  Asking is easy.  Being willing to do anything to accept that help -- well, that's a very different proposition, isn't it.

My hand flopped down on the nightstand, and came to rest on a book there.  Of all things Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."  I'd bought it to look smart, more than anything, and it had made its way to my bedside in an effort to impress some repeat offender of a one-night-stand ("Wow, he must be good sex, he reads Whitman!") -- and also because while the language was beautiful in places I really didn't understand it, and thus a lot of it bored me, so I used it to try to fall asleep.  So much for the classics.

Truth:

Without any real thought I opened it at random.  The poem I started reading was split, part on the bottom of the page I'd opened to, and part on the next.  This is what I read:

O me! O life!
The questions of these recurring.

Of the endless trains of the faithless
Of cities filled with the foolish

Of myself, forever reproaching myself
For who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?

I had to laugh at that.

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renewed,

Of the poor results of all
Of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest, me intertwined

The question, o me, So sad, recurring:
What good amid these, o me, o life?

Then came the page break, and before I turned it I understood the mystery of poetry, that it wasn't about comprehending the words necessarily, though these spoke clearly and directly to me -- it was about understanding the feeling -- just like sharing, actually. 

I turned the page and this is what I read:

Answer:

That you are here; that life exists, and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

And just like that, my great deep sad was over.

Across a hundred or so years Whitman had echoed my feelings and my questions -- life can seem false and empty, people even more so -- what's the point?  Why go on?

And he answered it with the only real answer there is to those moments:  That there is you, the only one of you there is or ever will be, and if you choose to, you may help, you may make a difference -- and so I understood what my job was again -- my real job, not the fancy bullshit corporate job I had at the time.

I was free from the horrible, soul-sucking swamp of a sadness I'd somehow stumbled into.  My sponsor had been right.  God, The Universe or The Great Whatever hadn't gotten me that far just to drop me on my ass -- that this, too, had passed.  I felt free.  For whatever mysterious reason, of all things, as pretentious as it may sound today, Whitman's poem had reawakened within me a clarity of purpose, and I felt like maybe I could help someone -- anyone --  I was ready to try to contribute again.

I heard once in a meeting that ultimately all we have to offer each other is our stories, and they are unique to each of us, and it is possible to help -- even to save lives -- by sharing them.  It is not for us to judge, but for us to do.  "O Me! O Life!" brought that idea back to me and made it sing.

To make sure this new freedom stuck, though, and to give me a chance to get busy "contributing" right away, God sent me The Scariest Sponsee on Earth the very next day.