I came dangerously close to leaving the Program last week. And after sharing my lack of faith that could force me out, lose me my sponsees, and destroy me, I had some sort of release. For the first time in five years, I almost cried in a meeting. Just the way the chair addressed me, it was so beautiful, so perfect. My eyes watered, my brow lowered, I looked down, looked away, and I thought, "Oh my god, this is going to happen, I am actually going to be 'one of those'....just let it happen....no, I can pull it together for ten more seconds..." It was slow motion. I did collect myself, but people still noticed. And we all felt one another's presence and brokenness.
Today someone commented on a photo that I had as a profile picture exactly three years ago. It's a beautiful photo, and I reinstated it as my profile picture. There are three ways that I typically time reference, which are, where was I in school (this ranges from kindergarten to post-secondary, and also includes my yoga and ballet studies), who was I dating (or wanting to date), and where was I in my journey in sobriety.
In this photo, I was about half a year into sobriety, and about another half a year away from my second relapse. A thought came to me today, imagine if I never had that ten months of sobriety. I wouldn't have been able to have gone through my ballet exams, I wouldn't have gracefully gone through the death of my best friend, which would take place one week later, I wouldn't have had that clear skin and clear bright eyes...
Later today, maybe because it's Valentine's Day, I thought about my ex boyfriend, who I was temporarily broken up with at that time. We made up shortly after my friend's funeral, but then I ended that relationship a little more than half a year later, the same week I got sober again. I haven't looked back, but today I had a "Remember When" about the times that I would get so angry with him. There we nights I wanted to hunt him down. The wrath and the envy made me a monster, it's amazing that I was the one who ended it, and not him.
I have not had another boyfriend since him, but I have had two relationship-like men in my life. The first was a year and half into sobriety, and the second was two years in. Both men broke my heart, but not once, not once did my defects ever come out. I fought pain, acted compulsive, wrote about fives journals, and cried quite a bit, but never did that ugliness surface. It was like those defects didn't even exist in me anymore.
One of the reasons that I wanted to leave the Program is that I was fed up with the idea of praying defects away. Studies are finding that we are born the way we are, and for better or for worse, we can not be changed. In other words, it is in fact nature over nurture (which I have always suspected, and why I will never adopt).
So here I am, with these serious "sins", and now I am going against my very nature, living an insincere life (which I have also learnt can make us depressed, when we have to act against how we really are, or are feeling), and then also having the audacity to believe that I can just "pray" them away. And this only tied into my increasing hatred for all established religion, from Christianity to Buddhism. All of the injustices in our very backyards, and we are thinking, "It's meant to be", or "They will be punished/rewarded in the next world".
And though I am not a Christian anymore, I realize today that I can still fit some sort of spirituality into the Program. I absolutely must, if I want to survive. There is no legitimate treatment outside of A.A., not for us psychopaths. And after I had my "Remember When"'s this afternoon, I realized, wow, not only does the Program work, in that I am two years and three months sober last week, but the Steps actually DO work. I, and two other men, are witness to that. I am absolutely stunned, now that I really assess it.
All in all, I am still figuring out my spirituality, which is okay. As we read last week, the entire book of Alcoholics Anonymous is dedicated to this one feat. Today I posted an excerpt from a C.H. Spurgeon devotional, only because it was directly related to a poem that we read in open meetings, even the phrasing was the same. I still enjoy discussing Christian theology online, it is a rich culture with more to learn than one lifetime could manage, and sometimes, like today, I will read some of my traditional go-to sites, but I am no longer a practicing Christian, and I am proud to say that I am not observing Lent. In fact after this past Christmas, and this season's Lent, I am disgusted with the non-separation of Church and State. Even on a radio morning show last week, the DJ's were discussing, albeit disguised in a "joking" manner, what would be their "challenge" Lent abstentions.
I do not want to be a Christian anymore, I do not want to be identified with that corrupt system anymore, the false prophets, the abusive teachings, or the obligations and rituals. But I don't want to leave the Program, either. So I need to find a higher power, and I need it to not be me. Something in Steps Six and Seven worked. Who was I praying to?
The truth is, I think it was Jesus. But not as we know him. I think it was him as the Lion, not the Lamb as the world knows him. And now I wonder, is it entirely possible, that I could show others his true nature, as he has known mine, and healed it?
“'Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?' But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, 'Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.'" - Revelation 5.2-5
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