I may have mentioned once or twice that I have a serious problem with anything religious and with any person or groups interpretation of "god". The closest I've been able to get to acceptance of a "power greater than myself" is to believe that there are simply things that human beings don't know and that there are forces that we just don't understand. That's it...that's as far as I can get. The second anything beyond that tries to creep inside my head I recoil in disgust.
So is that enough? Is my belief that there is something unknowable and undefinable that is greater and more powerful than me strong enough to help me recover? Some might say that since my belief requires no faith, just the indisputable knowledge that human beings don't know shit about anything, and that it's not a real acceptance of a higher power. Would I be wrong to tell those people to piss off or do they have a point?
I really struggle with this on a daily basis so keep your wisecracks and smart-ass replies to yourself! Serious answers only :)
When I first started with AA I was unsure and very apprehensive about the whole God concept. I just didn't think it would work for me.
But, I truly did believe there was something greater and more powerful than me and I believed that it is a benign, positive, loving force. Now, if I spend time thinking about a Higher Power I feel more peaceful and able to deal with new situations without using alcohol.
Since I came back to AA I have always had a willingness to believe in a Higher Power. I am willing to work at having the right relationship with the God of my understanding.
God could be Good Orderly Direction or Group Of Drunks. It's all personal and up to you.
I don't truly understand the God of my understanding, but I do know that He/She/It is there for me and life is better with God in it.
Take care,
Carol
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Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
I don't really believe in god at all...I used to have the same cycnical recoil, until I realised that my anger was based on organized religion and how it can (not always) be hurtful to developing souls.. What I DO believe in is wisdom greater than my own...and the ways in which it is transmitted to me (when I am not too thick to accept it)- can be mysterious, inspired, poetic, powerful and transforming.
Perhaps the concept of god is just what you said- a word we have for things we don't understand.
Now I know that many people have a much more clear concept of/relationship with God..I am not one of them.
But I do know what it is to be deeply moved, and hence....changed.
I'll bet you've heard someone say that God/Higher Power, speaks to them through others. And that the group is a Higher Power.
I do believe my Higher Power speaks to me through others. I have to practice removing what I may think or feel about that person and listen for the message. I have days when I can't connect with the Power Greater than myself and that's where the Meetings/Groups come in. It is my Higher Power until I can re-connect.
Tipsy McStagger wrote: So is that enough? Is my belief that there is something unknowable and undefinable that is greater and more powerful than me strong enough to help me recover?
Yes and Yes.
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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain.
I don't think that the Spirit is supposed to be understood fully. Basically what I am reading here is that it is just one thing at a time, day by day, hour by hours sometimes? Well, imagine it all got known to you all at once. Imagine how overwhelming knowing everything about everything that would be.
God is omnipresent / omniscient. All we need to know is that He is there. We can pray. When we pray in earnest he knows. When we need, he will fulfill but not necessarily exactly what you pray for, ...sometimes you may get a different kind of answer. But the less criticisms and the less angst about whether or not he is there..and some of the horrible things people have learned in some of the not so well rounded religious domains...All that must go out the window.
Asking for clarity, asking in earnest recognition of our own failures which never end...But knowing that you can pray and that you ask for help in healing or whatever it is needed, can be the beginning to a very good support system...Aka God, Jesus...
Grace happens when we may not even expect it. Our human condition requires a lot of belief in things we can't exactly see but can see results of the unseen, Can't we?
I know that I am glad to not have to know the things I went through before in my life up front. As I had issues, some very difficult, somehow I got through. Not always real great but I seemed to learn as I got older.
We do need to be able to forgive ourselves. And at the same time work on repairing our spirit. I find that if I can help others, I feel some renewal of spirit. If I can know that life was not meant to be clean and neat, but to get messy and dirty...That I am not all that flawed at all, the world is what it is.
I think the fact that you believe there is some power greater than yourself that is unknowable and un-understandable does in fact require faith. Those whose belief system requires no faith would I suppose say that science can explain everything, but some things just haven't been discovered or proved yet. It seems to me that a belief in something greater than yourself that can be a guide to you in your life would be extremely helpful in your recovery. Take it from me, an expert, who is on day 15! :). (Translation -- I don't really know shit but I figured I would chime in anyway).
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Scientists announced that they have located the gene for alcoholism. Scientists say they found it at a party, talking way too loudly.
I appreciate all of your input but I would like to clarify something, I do not believe in faith, in fact I detest the word. I accept things based on their merit of being logical, rational and scientifically sound. It's my belief that as a species we're in our infancy when it comes to our understanding of the universe and what is and isn't possible. It's with that knowledge that I can safely and confidently assume that there are forces greater than our puny little minds are yet capable of understanding. I don't believe in some omnipotent master or intelligent designer or supreme being who is concerned with our well-being and fate. I only know one thing for certain and it's that we don't know very much about anything, and that does not require faith.
*gag*
Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go gargle Listerine to get the taste of that word out of my mouth
Hiya, Tips :) I love reading where you're at right now. I'm glad you're finding some peace & acceptance in your Journey where you're exploring what sobriety & having a Higher Power means for you. It's a part of recovery that deepens as we grow & more will be revealed. I'm glad you seem to be enjoying MIP at the moment & I'm gaining so much from sharing with you too.
I've plucked the following exerpt from the Big Book for you to have a ponder with. It's from the Chapter to the Agnostic. I struggle with the God bit too cuz so often I think I'm trying to come up with some kind of definitive meaning for it before I surrender any (blind?) faith to it but really for the most part, it's not what I think it is but how I feel it is. It's an inner guidance, truth & love when I can feel connected. Usually it's my head that gets in the way of my tapping into & touching within it. Tis a good thing Fellowship counts as a Higher Power when I'm all at sea & out of sorts with my personal HP.
I'm 2 & a half years around & all of this is a maturing process for me too. I'm enjoying having some patience around it for the moment. I hope the following paragraphs give you something to contemplate. There's plenty more in the Big Book & 'The 12 Steps & 12 Traditions' to help us in our understandings too. I hope you find inspiration inside these pages. Ps. Like me, try not to get hung up on the masculine references to the big word! God bless ;) Danielle x
When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crises we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is or He isn't. What was our choice to be?
Arrived at this point, we were squarely confronted with the question of faith. We couldn't duck the issue. Some of us had already walked far over the Bridge of Reason toward the desired shore of faith. The outlines and the promise of the New Land had brought lustre to tired eyes and fresh courage to flagging spirits. Friendly hands had stretched out in welcome. We were grateful that Reason had brought us so far. But somehow, we couldn't quite step ashore. Perhaps we had been leaning too heavily on reason that last mile and we did not like to lose our support.
That was natural, but let us think a little more closely. Without knowing it, had we not been brought to where we stood by a certain kind of faith? For did we not believe in our own reasoning? did we not have confidence in our ability to think? What was that but a sort of faith? Yes, we had been faithful, abjectly faithful to the God of Reason. So, in one way or another, we discovered that faith had been involved all the time!
We found, too, that we had been worshippers. What a state of mental goose-flesh that used to bring on! Had we not variously worshipped people, sentiment, things, money, and ourselves? And then, with a better motive, had we not worshipfully beheld the sunset, the sea, or a flower? Who of us had not loved something or somebody? How much did these feelings, these loves, these worships, have to do with pure reason? Little or nothing, we saw at last. Were not these things the tissue out of which our lives were constructed? Did not these feelings, after all, determine the course of our existence? It was impossible to say we had no capacity for faith, or love, or worship. In one form or another we had been living by faith and little else.
Imagine life without faith! Were nothing left but pure reason, it wouldn't be life. But we believed in life of course we did. We could not prove life in the sense that you can prove a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, yet, there it was. Could we still say the whole thing was nothing but a mass of electrons, created out of nothing, meaning nothing, whirling on to a destiny of nothingness? Or course we couldn't. The electrons themselves seemed more intelligent than that. At least, so the chemist said.
Hence, we saw that reason isn't everything. Neither is reason, as most of us use it, entirely dependable, thought it emanate from our best minds. What about people who proved that man could never fly? Yet we had been seeing another kind of flight, a spiritual liberation from this world, people who rose above their problems. They said God made these things possible, and we only smiled. We had seen spiritual release, but liked to tell ourselves it wasn't true.
Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.
We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us.
(Let it be a God or Higher Power of your own understanding ;)
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Progress not perfection.. & Practice makes Progress!
I appreciate all of your input but I would like to clarify something, I do not believe in faith, in fact I detest the word. I accept things based on their merit of being logical, rational and scientifically sound. It's my belief that as a species we're in our infancy when it comes to our understanding of the universe and what is and isn't possible. It's with that knowledge that I can safely and confidently assume that there are forces greater than our puny little minds are yet capable of understanding. I don't believe in some omnipotent master or intelligent designer or supreme being who is concerned with our well-being and fate. I only know one thing for certain and it's that we don't know very much about anything, and that does not require faith.
*gag*
Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go gargle Listerine to get the taste of that word out of my mouth
OH good GAWWWDDDD!!!! I think you just want something to bitch and complain about. Still addicted to the drama and chaos Will you ever just surrender? Quit fighting? Until you do, you will continue to white knuckle it and could very possible get drunk again. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt!
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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain.
Will you ever just surrender? Quit fighting? Until you do, you will continue to white knuckle it and could very possible get drunk again. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt!