How often I get reminded of how much I really don’t know or how much I forget what I have learned in here. I was thinking about what I read in the Grapevine book Spiritual Awakenings. It was minister or priest, who said that (and I’m rephrasing this) he really was surprised how shallow his spiritual life was, when he came in from years of drinking.
That brought up a number of things in my mind. One of them was that I had spent years in the seminary, leading a spiritual life. I got drunk and left that way of life and it took twenty years or more to get sober. When I got here I eventually learned just how shallow a person I was…or am.
I had no idea about how to have a spiritual relationship with my Higher Power, the God of my understanding. It has been an experience for me to grow along spiritual lines. Up and down, depending on something, which I had to work on, in order to continue to grow along these lines. And that is humility. Something this ego tries to combat from day to day.
And another is honesty. Coming to recognize just how often I lied to myself about things. But sharing with my sponsor and others helped me to begin to see where I was wrong. And once I became convinced of that I had a start on the other two above. My being shallow and humility.
All of this brought up another thought. Where am I in this program? I think I’m where I guess I’m supposed to be. Like my sponsor, those old timers I once knew, and all the people in the meetings I’ve met along the way. Right in the middle among them. I remember my sponsor coming to me and giving me a warning, which I did heed. He told me never to put him up on a pedestal. The fall was too far. Too far indeed.
Anyway I thought I’d stop and just run a quick check on myself. Still stumbling and bumbling along this path in sobriety. Happy to be any place in sobriety. Grateful to my Higher Power for all that has been given me. And so too all my friends and acquaintances in this program for their caring and help.