Space To Heal

Finally, the eleventh step is not driven by a deep desire to teach us how to sit still.

It is, in some deep and mysterious way, giving us a space where God can do deep work in us.

It is union with the divine. It helps us cultivate lovely things like love and compassion.

Thomas Keating said, “Intentionality is the star rising in the dark nights, it is the focus of contemplative prayer.”

A daily meditation and prayer practice is the process that reflects our intention to draw near to God and him to us. This may be the most profound gift that things like the 12-steps and quarantines and scary viruses give us - a capacity for love that is larger than our endless quench for self-satisfaction.

Meditation Moment

And when you arise in the morning, you will find that what I have told you is so.

Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass”

What if abundance was everywhere, even during times of suffering and the coronavirus?

What if...our eyes continue see as they always have, but our heart learns how to interpret the world through the lens of love?

Today, take time to breathe. Look for the abundance. See how it moves you.

Uncomfortably Aware

Another thing about prayer and meditation. It seems to support the hard work of self-awareness. When we sit and breathe, it is hard NOT to notice our anxiety, rage, frustration and resentment. When exhausted it is hard NOT to notice that we perhaps fall asleep in the middle of a 20 minute sit. It is hard NOT to notice our itchy nose or obsessive thoughts.

We add to our suffering when we try to ignore our pain. Our compulsions are ways we work to avoid noticing. The eleventh step is saying, “Notice. Pay attention. This pain will not kill you but avoiding it is definitely bad for your health.” Avoiding acknowledging our pain CAN kill us. It increases our suffering and our suffering demands relief without resolution. Acknowledging our feelings helps reduce resentment. It soothes our anxiety.

The longer I avoid scratching my itchy nose the more miserable the itch. It’s almost as if the mere admission that I FEEL this, that or the other thing allows the emotion to stand down. If I keep ignoring it, that which demands my attention gets louder and more obnoxious. Meditation helps us notice the things we are avoiding.

Another fun fact about meditation. It turns out that when we practice, our brain lights up in the same way that it does when we are experiencing a secure attachment relationship.

This validates our hope that we CAN improve our conscious contact with God. We are making a connection! If isolation is part of the disease of SUD, doesn’t it make sense that connection is part of the treatment?

Letting Go- Surrender and Seeking

One thing we learn when we practice the eleventh step is that we can let go, surrender to and seek God’s will.

These are fine ideas but impossible to execute if the “god” of our understanding does not rescue little girls from sexual predators or abusive fathers. It is a challenge to trust a “god” when people chalk up death and disaster as “God’s will.”

This kind of God? How can we trust that? My friend Terri had to unlearn God stuff as did I. In the beginning of my recovery, the idea that God wanted to love me without condition was a radical concept for me. The practices of my early faith reflected an unspoken belief that God is hungry, angry, and distant. If I really looked closely at my rigid practices my relationship with God was more like my grandchildren’s relationship with the animals at the local petting zoo.

Feed him (God takes cash or credit cards these days) and don’t stand too close or you might get your fingers bit off. As we pray and meditate, our confusions and fears and ignorance will rise up and greet us on occasion. Instead of giving up, go looking for spiritual advisors who understand God’s character - gracious, merciful, loving and desirous of blessing and healing us.

My Awesome Friend, Who Was Awesomely Miss-Informed

My friend did reluctantly agree to enter the church with the steeple and receive baptism. It was the last time we ever baptized in a church; today, we head down to the river. I learned from my friend that sustained sobriety serves as a kind of holding tank for folks as God gently, ever so slowly, heals them. Over time, the shame that clung to her sloughed off. Today, she attends a “regular” church and is a vital part of their congregation. Her fear of God and steeples has dissipated as her time in recovery has lengthened and the lessons learned have become more true and real for her.

Recovery is rarely an instantaneous moment of glorious clarity (although it happens); mostly, it is faithfully putting in the time, doing the work, showing up and waiting as God does his part.

“The good news is, this is the hardest part, and every hour, every day, every week the process will get easier, more or less, if you stay the course and take toward this new life that you don’t want and can’t yet imagine, a life that will someday seem so much more valuable and hard-won than the life that came before.”

Stienberg and Bader, Out of the Wreck I Rise

Hold on just a minute. And then two. Breathe.