Communion

“Jesus had a God experience.”

Fr. Tom

Interesting.

Jesus had a God experience. This seems rather obvious to me.

Fr. Tom was speaking of the transfiguration narrative as written in the Christian bible, Mark 17: 1-9. Fr. Tom went on to explain that Jesus had two other God experiences: His baptism and his death. In all three experiences, the earth responded from the clouds. John the Baptist heard a voice from the clouds. Peter heard a voice from the clouds. A soldier received a message from his experience at the foot of the cross.

So what does this have to do with our recovery?

Fr. Tom emphasized the prayer life of Jesus Christ. All of us know our need to be in conscious contact with our God. Why? It is precisely in our conscious contact with our God that we are able to engage our wisdom in knowing the difference between our will and God’s will.

Apparently, to me at least, the efforts of Jesus to continuously be in conscious contact with His God reveals His need for help in fulfilling His purpose. My need for help is expressed in my daily practice of steps 1, 2, and 3 as I remind myself of the total absence of control I have of my life, the daily acknowledgement of my awareness of a Higher Power, and the effort to turn my life and my will over to my God. These practices are the foundation of my sobriety. Further, as I have observed in the 17 years of my recovery, these steps are our foundation for sobriety, serenity, courage and wisdom.

The message I continue to receive from our recovery fellowship, my Native American fellowship, my yoga practices, and from Christian fellowship is the same. The constant contact with our Higher Power is the critical element and foundation of sustained sobriety.

I looked at the statement discussed last week from Richard Rohr: “Don’t dare go after your faults yourselves or you will go after the wrong thing, or more commonly a clever substitute for the real thing.”

The message is the same: we need help from our Higher Power.

How do we get this help?

As we have learned in our group conscience, each of us has a unique relationship with our Higher Power. Each of us contributes this experience, strength and hope to the sustained sobriety of our recovery communities. We heal as a community in communion with our Higher Power.

Those of you who are not on the 12 step path in your Spiritual journeys continue to contribute to our communities at large. Our local and universal connection is no less dependent on our mutual and persistent conscious contact with our Higher Power. We depend on these relationships for the hopes and courage to continue our journeys. Personally, this is a vision of amazing encouragement and hope, both for my continued sobriety and for the enlightenment of our community and universe.

Be still.

Let us rest in this vision of a divinely supported community and communion.

Gratitude is our humble gift which keeps us in our state of awareness of our connection. I do not take you for granted.

Namaste’