Post by QuickSilver on Mar 9, 2018 9:23:53 GMT -5
I took this from an Al-Anon message board.. It explains finding a higher power in a group.. despite not being religious or believing in a deity.
I don't believe in a "Deity" or placebo or Jahweh, the Judeo Christian Deity either, I have faith in mathematical concepts
If you look up the word "God" in the dictionary, one of the definitions is "The Great Reality", real I can do, if you have surgery what heals you? the doctor sews you up but what joins and fuses your skin back together
long explanation here about white blood cells etc but the truth is -NO ONE KNOWS-
Not really
in Alanon we get to have a god of our own understanding
OK, so my god is a non deity with NO peepee (not big on deities with peepees, many of them seem to think we can just rape ole mother earth, when I grow up my god is going to have a womb) that is...no separateness, it's everything, all the future, all the past, and the infinite present, this "God" has "laws" we know as "natural laws", if I drop something it falls, the earth revolves around the sun, plants grow and reproduce, people and animals grow and reproduce, it doesn't matter whether I believe in a deity or not, these things happen
So when I think of the god of my own understanding, I think of all those unknowable things, I think of God as "X" which equals "A power greater then myself" that equals "everything that ever was and everything that ever will be all except for that little voice in my head that gets me in all this trouble"
The steps are a series of Socratic questions that are there to bring about a "spiritual awakening" or more simply put "A personality change so we can fit in with the world around us", they are a mathematical equation that have a specific result, in order to get that result you need a "power greater then yourself" that is not "you"
easy, it's everything
A column I read just addressed that the other day
How do you turn your life and will over to a group of people? Or, to refine that a bit, how do you make a group your Higher Power?
To best answer that, I need to show you some things. Take my hand, we're going to travel through Time and Space for a few minutes. Ready?
**BAMF!**
J: Where are we?
Mr. SP: Ummm, my aim isn't as precise as I like but if I ...
looks up at the night sky, checks the constellations
Mr. SP: Yes, this is roughly the early 1800's, and we're somewhere in Texas. See that old guy over there?
J: By the campfire?
Mr. SP: Yes. He's got something to tell us.
J and Mr. SP wander over.
Old Guy by the Campfire: If you need space by the fire, I can share.
Mr. SP: Thank you kindly.
Old Guy by the Campfire: You two look a might new at this. Remember, if you get up in the middle of the night to take a pee, shake out your bedroll before you get back into it.
J: How come?
Old Guy: Scorpions. They crawl in when you get up, attracted by how warm and toasty you left the blankets.
Mr. SP: Thanks, we've got to get going though.
Old Guy: Suit yourselves.
**BAMF**
J: Holy...
Mr. SP: Speak up, I can't hear you over the engines!
J: Where...?
Mr. SP: We're in a plane over France in... if I got it right, 1942...
J: What the hell...?
Mr. SP: Hang on, we need to listen to this guy...
Points to airman in camo and blackface
Airman: I've done a hundred jumps, and you guys are new, right? Remember, after you jump...
J: We're going to jump?
Airman: Pay attention! After you get your 'chute on, we'll do some recon over the landing site and you can jump when we see the signal. No matter how fast you think you're falling, make sure you do a slow count to 20 before you pull the ripcord... otherwise, your 'chute might tangle in the props, got it?
Mr. SP and J nod.
Mr. SP: Got it. Uh, I mean, Got it, Sir!
**BAMF!**
J: This is getting... where are we now?
Mr. SP: Florida Keys. Sometime in the '70's I think.
J: How do you know it's the '70's if you're not very good at this?
Mr. SP: All the paisley.
J: What is this place?
Mr. SP: It's a dive school. Shhh, here's the instructor.
Instructor walks up with a class in various scuba gear
Instructor: ... bends, which is basically when nitrogen bubbles, created by pressure at the depths we'll eventually dive to, enter the liquid in your body, and should you rise towards the surface too quickly will be forced out... very painful and possibly fatal. What you need to do is rise at a measured pace, via a schedule which...
Mr. SP: Okay, let's get back.
**BAMF!**
J: What was the point of all that?
Mr. SP: Okay, if you'd stayed by the campfire that night, back in the 1800's, and you'd gotten up to pee in the night, would you have followed that Old Guy's advice?
J: Well... sure.
Mr. SP: Why?
J: Well, he knows what he's talking about... I mean, I've never camped in a bedroll by a fire and he has so...
Mr. SP: What about the Airman and his slow count instructions? Would you have done that?
J: Sure, although I'm not sure how slowly I can count when I'm jumping out of a plane.
Mr. SP: Me neither, actually. But why do you believe him?
J: Well... he's like, a trained air force guy. He said he'd done like a hundred jumps and so, you know, he's... he knows how to do it. Don't think I can't see where you're going here...
Mr. SP: Indulge me. What about the Dive Instructor, if you were in that class, would you follow the formula he was going to lay out to avoid the bends?
J: Yes.
Mr. SP: Why?
J: The bends is painful, I know that without all this rigmarole.
Mr. SP: So you would make those guys your Higher Power? Like you'd worship them and stuff?
J: No, not... not worship them, that sounds weird and creepy.
Mr. SP: So in those situations you're turning your will and your life over to them -- meaning you'll seek their counsel and follow their suggestions -- because they have experience in how to survive where you find yourself.
J: Yeah. Okay, yeah.
Mr. SP: So it's not really the individual people you're turning your will and your life over to -- it's not specific people, it's their knowledge and experience of how to survive something. That's what you're surrendering to. It's their experience which is your "Higher Power."
J: ... well... yeah.
Mr. SP: So that's how you do it then.
J: Do what?
Mr. SP: Turn your will and your life over to a group. You find yourself in a position equally fraught with danger and potential for pain and fatality today as you might have been in any of those other scenarios. Only instead of scorpions and tangled 'chutes and the bends you're facing addiction and fear and ego. And the people in the meeting have survived those same things... so what they have to tell you has value because it's based on experience -- even if the way some of them say it is colored by their own ego and such. Just because someone's been around a while doesn't mean they stop being a work in progress. If the Diving Instructor turned out to be an unmitigated a$$, it wouldn't invalidate the truth of what he was telling you about what the bends are, how they can harm you and what you need to do to avoid them, right?
J: Yeah, I guess. Yeah.
Mr. SP: Same in a group. It's not the people that you're turning your will and your life over to (they're messy and flawed as individuals, and in one way or another they always will be -- the best we get is progress)... it's their practical experience of how to recover, and how to apply this recovery and 12 Step information to your life, day in, day out, one day at a time. That's what you are turning your will and life over to. So you simply live your daily routine the way the group suggests you do, and when you hit a snag or have a question or a problem, share about it in the group and take in the suggestions which are offered. Some people might be easier to listen to than others, but on the whole, you'll get good orderly direction. And God knows, when I was new, that's what I needed. What my mind came up with as how to handle things was usually NOT a good plan to follow. I needed to follow the plan laid out by people who had experience NOT doing pretty much the only way I knew how to do anything. Following their plan, and asking them for input when I was stuck, was how I first "turned my will and my life" over to the group.
J: Oh.
Once I threw my old concepts out the window as the result of doing the steps I realized being spiritual wasn't just some religious mumbo jumbo, but just the way to learn how to fit ourselves into the world around us, it didn't matter what clothes it was wearing, old white guy with a white beard, wandering Jewish hippy, fat Asian guy that smiled a lot or simply gazing at the stars, there is wisdom to be found everywhere, I just needed to learn to be open minded enough to begin to see it
Let go and let God is the perfect thing to say as we watch the train drive off the cliff, because all we ever had was the illusion of control anyway, and jumping in front of train wrecks never had any good results for me, the train got mad for my interference and I got run over, now I pick up a big bucket of buttery popcorn and wonder why I am not losing weight as I watch the train drive off the cliff and say to myself, "oh well, let go and let god" (and maybe mutter under my breath and good riddance because I fo sho aint no saint)
__________________
I don't believe in a "Deity" or placebo or Jahweh, the Judeo Christian Deity either, I have faith in mathematical concepts
If you look up the word "God" in the dictionary, one of the definitions is "The Great Reality", real I can do, if you have surgery what heals you? the doctor sews you up but what joins and fuses your skin back together
long explanation here about white blood cells etc but the truth is -NO ONE KNOWS-
Not really
in Alanon we get to have a god of our own understanding
OK, so my god is a non deity with NO peepee (not big on deities with peepees, many of them seem to think we can just rape ole mother earth, when I grow up my god is going to have a womb) that is...no separateness, it's everything, all the future, all the past, and the infinite present, this "God" has "laws" we know as "natural laws", if I drop something it falls, the earth revolves around the sun, plants grow and reproduce, people and animals grow and reproduce, it doesn't matter whether I believe in a deity or not, these things happen
So when I think of the god of my own understanding, I think of all those unknowable things, I think of God as "X" which equals "A power greater then myself" that equals "everything that ever was and everything that ever will be all except for that little voice in my head that gets me in all this trouble"
The steps are a series of Socratic questions that are there to bring about a "spiritual awakening" or more simply put "A personality change so we can fit in with the world around us", they are a mathematical equation that have a specific result, in order to get that result you need a "power greater then yourself" that is not "you"
easy, it's everything
A column I read just addressed that the other day
How do you turn your life and will over to a group of people? Or, to refine that a bit, how do you make a group your Higher Power?
To best answer that, I need to show you some things. Take my hand, we're going to travel through Time and Space for a few minutes. Ready?
**BAMF!**
J: Where are we?
Mr. SP: Ummm, my aim isn't as precise as I like but if I ...
looks up at the night sky, checks the constellations
Mr. SP: Yes, this is roughly the early 1800's, and we're somewhere in Texas. See that old guy over there?
J: By the campfire?
Mr. SP: Yes. He's got something to tell us.
J and Mr. SP wander over.
Old Guy by the Campfire: If you need space by the fire, I can share.
Mr. SP: Thank you kindly.
Old Guy by the Campfire: You two look a might new at this. Remember, if you get up in the middle of the night to take a pee, shake out your bedroll before you get back into it.
J: How come?
Old Guy: Scorpions. They crawl in when you get up, attracted by how warm and toasty you left the blankets.
Mr. SP: Thanks, we've got to get going though.
Old Guy: Suit yourselves.
**BAMF**
J: Holy...
Mr. SP: Speak up, I can't hear you over the engines!
J: Where...?
Mr. SP: We're in a plane over France in... if I got it right, 1942...
J: What the hell...?
Mr. SP: Hang on, we need to listen to this guy...
Points to airman in camo and blackface
Airman: I've done a hundred jumps, and you guys are new, right? Remember, after you jump...
J: We're going to jump?
Airman: Pay attention! After you get your 'chute on, we'll do some recon over the landing site and you can jump when we see the signal. No matter how fast you think you're falling, make sure you do a slow count to 20 before you pull the ripcord... otherwise, your 'chute might tangle in the props, got it?
Mr. SP and J nod.
Mr. SP: Got it. Uh, I mean, Got it, Sir!
**BAMF!**
J: This is getting... where are we now?
Mr. SP: Florida Keys. Sometime in the '70's I think.
J: How do you know it's the '70's if you're not very good at this?
Mr. SP: All the paisley.
J: What is this place?
Mr. SP: It's a dive school. Shhh, here's the instructor.
Instructor walks up with a class in various scuba gear
Instructor: ... bends, which is basically when nitrogen bubbles, created by pressure at the depths we'll eventually dive to, enter the liquid in your body, and should you rise towards the surface too quickly will be forced out... very painful and possibly fatal. What you need to do is rise at a measured pace, via a schedule which...
Mr. SP: Okay, let's get back.
**BAMF!**
J: What was the point of all that?
Mr. SP: Okay, if you'd stayed by the campfire that night, back in the 1800's, and you'd gotten up to pee in the night, would you have followed that Old Guy's advice?
J: Well... sure.
Mr. SP: Why?
J: Well, he knows what he's talking about... I mean, I've never camped in a bedroll by a fire and he has so...
Mr. SP: What about the Airman and his slow count instructions? Would you have done that?
J: Sure, although I'm not sure how slowly I can count when I'm jumping out of a plane.
Mr. SP: Me neither, actually. But why do you believe him?
J: Well... he's like, a trained air force guy. He said he'd done like a hundred jumps and so, you know, he's... he knows how to do it. Don't think I can't see where you're going here...
Mr. SP: Indulge me. What about the Dive Instructor, if you were in that class, would you follow the formula he was going to lay out to avoid the bends?
J: Yes.
Mr. SP: Why?
J: The bends is painful, I know that without all this rigmarole.
Mr. SP: So you would make those guys your Higher Power? Like you'd worship them and stuff?
J: No, not... not worship them, that sounds weird and creepy.
Mr. SP: So in those situations you're turning your will and your life over to them -- meaning you'll seek their counsel and follow their suggestions -- because they have experience in how to survive where you find yourself.
J: Yeah. Okay, yeah.
Mr. SP: So it's not really the individual people you're turning your will and your life over to -- it's not specific people, it's their knowledge and experience of how to survive something. That's what you're surrendering to. It's their experience which is your "Higher Power."
J: ... well... yeah.
Mr. SP: So that's how you do it then.
J: Do what?
Mr. SP: Turn your will and your life over to a group. You find yourself in a position equally fraught with danger and potential for pain and fatality today as you might have been in any of those other scenarios. Only instead of scorpions and tangled 'chutes and the bends you're facing addiction and fear and ego. And the people in the meeting have survived those same things... so what they have to tell you has value because it's based on experience -- even if the way some of them say it is colored by their own ego and such. Just because someone's been around a while doesn't mean they stop being a work in progress. If the Diving Instructor turned out to be an unmitigated a$$, it wouldn't invalidate the truth of what he was telling you about what the bends are, how they can harm you and what you need to do to avoid them, right?
J: Yeah, I guess. Yeah.
Mr. SP: Same in a group. It's not the people that you're turning your will and your life over to (they're messy and flawed as individuals, and in one way or another they always will be -- the best we get is progress)... it's their practical experience of how to recover, and how to apply this recovery and 12 Step information to your life, day in, day out, one day at a time. That's what you are turning your will and life over to. So you simply live your daily routine the way the group suggests you do, and when you hit a snag or have a question or a problem, share about it in the group and take in the suggestions which are offered. Some people might be easier to listen to than others, but on the whole, you'll get good orderly direction. And God knows, when I was new, that's what I needed. What my mind came up with as how to handle things was usually NOT a good plan to follow. I needed to follow the plan laid out by people who had experience NOT doing pretty much the only way I knew how to do anything. Following their plan, and asking them for input when I was stuck, was how I first "turned my will and my life" over to the group.
J: Oh.
Once I threw my old concepts out the window as the result of doing the steps I realized being spiritual wasn't just some religious mumbo jumbo, but just the way to learn how to fit ourselves into the world around us, it didn't matter what clothes it was wearing, old white guy with a white beard, wandering Jewish hippy, fat Asian guy that smiled a lot or simply gazing at the stars, there is wisdom to be found everywhere, I just needed to learn to be open minded enough to begin to see it
Let go and let God is the perfect thing to say as we watch the train drive off the cliff, because all we ever had was the illusion of control anyway, and jumping in front of train wrecks never had any good results for me, the train got mad for my interference and I got run over, now I pick up a big bucket of buttery popcorn and wonder why I am not losing weight as I watch the train drive off the cliff and say to myself, "oh well, let go and let god" (and maybe mutter under my breath and good riddance because I fo sho aint no saint)
__________________